


I don't know the words (but I can try to hum along)

by thehobblefootalchemist



Category: Portal (Video Game)
Genre: Asexual Character, Body Dysphoria, Dissociation, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Eventual Happy Ending, F/M, Hallucinations, Naming Your Inanimate Objects and How It Can Help, Nightmares, Panic Attacks, Past Violence, Physical Disability, Post-Portal 2, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Slow Burn, Though to be clear this is not about Fixing this is about Coping
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-21
Updated: 2017-06-23
Packaged: 2018-08-23 20:30:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 36,282
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8341639
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thehobblefootalchemist/pseuds/thehobblefootalchemist
Summary: With so many memories weighing on him Doug Rattmann struggles to reclaim his sense of self; Chell, with too few, has to create one almost entirely from scratch. Both are difficult propositions, but after some negotiation they decide to make a go of it–together.





	1. Prologue: Eidolon

Doug could hear singing.

This was a realization that took him some time to process. Ever since his stasis pod had been given an abrupt power jolt and he’d clambered from its smoking ruin, the only sounds he’d come into contact with were ones resultant from the death-throes of the facility. The bloated beast had finally begun falling apart at its seams and he’d managed to step back into life just in time to be aware of joining it on its screeching descent into hell: floors, panels and catwalks wrenched apart from one another with ugly shrieks at the slightest bit of provocation; insistent and apparently ignored alarms howled from every overhead speaker; distant and then terrifyingly not-so-distant booming caused painful reverberations that occurred at increasingly short intervals; and after a time, desperate wailing from what sounded like an Englishman came bleeding through the static-thick intercom. Even Cube had not been audible over that cacophony.

But now…now there was music, and that fact found Doug able to lower his arms a little, capable of peeking out over his sleeves to investigate what was going on as the haze of primal instinct he’d been forced into began to dissipate. Residual fear made it hard to concentrate still, but he was reasonably sure the snatches of song weren’t part of an auditory hallucination.

_It’s not_ , murmured Cube’s voice. _You can feel your eardrums vibrating, can’t you?_

His relief was as sharp as the look he shot in his companion’s direction. “You’re okay!”

Cube lay in the same spot she’d landed after she’d tumbled from his pack during the messy leap he’d made for the corner under a catwalk’s stairwell; she was askew and a bit scratched but otherwise unharmed. Uncurling himself immediately from the fetal position he’d taken Doug crawled out to her, scooped her up and pressed a cheek against one of her six hearts.

“You didn’t fall after all,” he choked out. “When the support beams threatened to give out I thought for sure that—”

_I know_ , she cut in, soothing. _But I’m fine, and so are you. Relatively speaking, that is._

It certainly was relative. In between shuddering breaths Doug took stock of himself, and his conclusion so far was that he’d hardly been subject to a worse day—which was saying something considering Aperture had given him innumerable awful experiences. For starters he was dehydrated and famished, his muscles ached and routinely cramped, and it felt as if someone had rubbed sand in his eyes and scoured the inside of his head with steel wool. And this was to say nothing of the way his injured leg was throbbing: the bullet was still in him, flooding his thigh with molten agony every time he moved and jostled it.

But he was, too, still somehow very much alive, and he figured it would be in superbly bad taste to question or complain about that.

“So what should we…” he began to ask, until the words were cracked apart by a violent coughing fit. Aside from being parched his throat was making it known he must have spent a while screaming while in his panicked state—he couldn’t take a breath without his airways constricting, the flesh of them feeling dry and raw.

It was some time before the spasms let off and he could finally begin his question again. Cube of course had known what he was going to ask anyway, so had a ready answer for his concern over what next to do.

_It’s obvious. Find the turrets._

Doug was leery about that option (he couldn’t even stand properly without a section of metal railing to support him) but he could well see the point his companion was trying to make. It made sense to try and find out what was making the sentries happy enough to sing when only a little while ago they’d all been in danger of being vaporized.

_Plus the ones in lullaby mode don’t usually try to shoot anything_ , Cube added.

“Usually?” he grunted, skeptical, but still he decided to follow her advice. Gathering reconnaissance info from the worker drones sounded less directly suicidal than wandering into the queen bee’s chamber to demand what was going on.

Though he did wonder, as he tucked Cube into her sling and took his first few staggering steps, to what extent GLaDOS was actually involved in all of this. He knew Her voice well enough to be sure that he had not heard it once since his waking, and it definitely wasn’t like Her to allow Her precious facility to fall to such ruin as he’d hitherto seen. His mind instead brought back in vivid clarity the voice he _had_ discerned coming from the failing intercoms. If he didn’t know better, he’d have said it had almost sounded like the Intelligence Dampening Sphere…but exactly how the little AI would have gotten himself installed successfully into the mainframe he did not know.

His ongoing struggle to compensate for the gunshot wound made it difficult to concentrate for longer than a minute or so, but with Cube’s gentle guidance Doug was able to drag himself in the direction of the turret song. The melody wasn’t cohesive yet, comprised more of occasional bursts of notes than a fully realized tune, but it certainly did sound as if there were a great number of voices chipping in to the endeavor. Nervousness began chewing gleefully at the back of his neck as he approached a large door, its bite growing fiercer with each forward step he managed to take. Was this truly a good idea?

_Don’t get bogged down in hypotheticals_ , Cube hissed at him. _You know if you go down that road you’ll stop moving and never start again._

Doug gave himself a forceful shake, painfully aware of how correct she was.

He was not an action hero, so he did not throw caution to the wind and go bursting dramatically through the door when he came upon it; rather, he gently set caution down next to him and made sure it was staying quiet before reaching for the door’s push-bar, pressing against it just enough so that he could peek through the gap into the space beyond and (hopefully) have nothing notice he was there.

His mouth dropped open when he took in what awaited him beyond the barrier, and he had great difficulty keeping himself from losing his balance from the sheer amazement: hundreds of turrets were tottering around an area of size comparable to a concert hall, humming and chirping with one another and looking for all the world like a children’s singing troupe preparing for a big school performance. Doug had never in his life seen a sight quite like it.

He didn’t know quite what to do about the discovery, either. Unable to separate survival intuition from the persistent dread his condition always instilled in him, he did not know whether to believe this was truly an unsafe place to be or that he’d be fine to walk out into their midst, and find out just why they all seemed to be orienting themselves so they were facing the direction of the elevator shaft jutting out from the floor’s far side.

_You’re seriously considering that?_ Cube whispered. _I know I’m the one who suggested coming here, but come on…I think we’ve got a good view from right where we are thank you very much._

“I didn’t ask you,” he breathed back.

Oh so slowly, Doug opened the door wider, going far enough so that he could slip through without hitting his companion against the frame. Mercifully the hinges were all but silent and he was able to close it again without a single turret becoming suspicious. His eyes were trained on the elevator, and Cube was talking again but he didn’t pay attention, focused entirely on the glass column with a thought process tripping over itself it was calculating so quickly.

For what reason would so many turrets gather in one place? Why would they to a machine be turned off their dangerous setting, and practicing the chorus of a song of farewell that Caroline had been known to play from time to time? In front of _the one elevator shaft he was aware of that had an unobstructed pathway to the outside world?_

It was one of the most beautiful moments of his existence that he could recall. The warmest glow, that of complete and pure understanding, filled him up, and it did not matter that he could not even say what he understood yet, all that mattered was that he _did_ and he felt cleansed and healed and something he thought he could even call _happy_ and his body moved on its own, lurching forward without his awareness to follow the call of the start of that song—the true start this time, because without his notice the hall had fallen utterly silent, hushed all around him until those first few notes floated spell-like up from the floors below. He heard them, bore witness to them, and _knew_.

_Her summons to heaven._

When the turrets positioned nearest the elevator began their harmony Doug stopped, watching with a hammering heart as the top of the car appeared with agonizing slowness. His mind was for once completely blank, paralyzed with the purest, strangest mixture of exhilaration and terror, and when he saw Chell’s face on the other side of the glass it was all he could do to keep himself from sinking to his knees.

The elevator halted about twenty feet from the floor, allowing time for the rest of the assembled machines to join in their sendoff of Aperture’s last test subject. When the music swelled around him it was like a physical presence and he knew from the way his vision gradually fogged that tears were swelling in his eyes as well. He allowed them to fall freely.

After a time the car began moving slowly upward again; Doug could not help but limp forward, craning his neck to try to drink in the sight of her as long as he could. From what he could see of her expression as she gazed out at the symphony she was as surprised (and perhaps as touched) by all of this as he, and that it was beginning to register with her that she really was about to be set free. His chest constricted, and unlike with his throat earlier he accepted the pain with gratitude, because this hurt was not a hurt—it was emotion, the vindication of so many long years of suffering.

He had been graced with one more day of life, enough so that he could be blessed with the knowledge that Chell would really be getting out this time. Standing there with barely the strength to stay conscious as he watched her go, Doug felt contentment such as he’d never known sweep through him, even daring to think he’d never need anything else after this…perhaps not even his own freedom.

It was during that moment that Chell saw him.

He knew with certainty that she had because those gray eyes locked perfectly with his own, her lips had parted in clear shock, and in the precious dwindling seconds that remained before the elevator disappeared beyond the high ceiling, her fingertips had risen and ghosted across the glass.

She had reached for him. Reflexive action or no, Chell had reached for him and something in him shifted, and Doug knew beyond doubt he was ruined.

The music was still going but its hold on him was gone, replaced by a weak but bright flame of new purpose. It cleared his head with a cold burning, chasing away the contentment and instilling in him fresh hunger, a desire for more, to deny satisfaction here—gave him renewed want, no, _need_ for—

“ _Out_ ,” he panted as he threw open a side door and left the choir room without looking back. This was one of the most selfishly-motivated actions he had ever permitted himself to indulge in, he knew, but he also knew that his already haunted mind would only reach new lows of torture if he did not achieve the ambition that seeing her palm pressing on that glass had in turn pressed into his soul:

_I have to get out of here._


	2. Adjustments

The night was chill, but the fire helped. Chell stared into it as she contemplated whether she was being a fool.

Ever since leaving the wheat field she had been conflicted: delighted as she was to finally be out of the facility, what she’d seen— _who_ she’d seen—at the last had left a deep impression on her. She’d had no reason to suspect it, but it still hurt an unexpected amount to know that there had been another living human being in Aperture at the same time as her. Another stinging notion was that she didn’t have a clue who they could have been. A scientist? A test subject that had stolen a lab coat? A good person? Someone dangerous?

Part of her, purely on instinct, didn’t think that last possibility was likely. It had been far off, true, but the expression she’d seen hadn’t seemed like it could belong to someone who begrudged her release. In fact, Chell could have sworn she had witnessed someone even happier to see her leaving Aperture than GLaDOS was. That was why, in the end, she’d left the arrow…

She had drawn the shape in the dirt outside the shed following a lengthy period of thought. There was no way of knowing if the mystery person would leave the facility the same way, if they even got out of there at all, but it had felt better to her than leaving absolutely no indication of the direction she’d gone. Hearing another person’s voice was a surprisingly attractive scenario; while in the grip of testing Chell had, in her more bitter moments, indulged in feeling as if she’d be quite happy never to see another sentient being again, robot or human, but now that she was thrust into the very real prospect of having a life beyond that prison…well, her perspective had shifted. At this point she even felt ready to talk to someone.

Being in that place had left its mark, however, and the longer the day had gone on the more her cagey nature had crawled back. She’d marked where she was going, and really in the scheme of things hadn’t actually moved very far. Suppose this white-coated person did show up—how could she possibly predict the correct way of receiving them? That all depended on if they turned out to be hostile or not, and there would be no way of determining that until the situation was already upon her.

Groaning, Chell leaned forward and placed her head in her hands. She wished she could just fall asleep. From the point Wheatley had woken her up from stasis, her only experiences with unconsciousness had been unpleasant ones (namely the two instances where he’d knocked her out, respectively resultant of being punched into a mineshaft and from passing out under the pressure of fighting until her only option had been ripping the entirety of the battleground into _literal outer space_ ), and her body at least was eager for some good rest. The adrenal vapor still in her system just had other plans than allowing such respite.

That and, she admitted to herself, she wasn’t actually sure yet how to get to a relaxed enough state for sleep. With all that had happened…

Chell roughly shook herself as memories thick with testing pressure and the heavy boom of explosions came too close. Resolutely avoiding looking at the stars overhead, she focused her thoughts on the person in the lab coat again. Even with the uncertainties it was a safer line of reflection.

In the facility she had relied upon her gut to tell her what to do, and listening to it now, she couldn’t deny the fact that she was feeling some hope. It was a foreign emotion to consider, sadly, but then again that was precisely the reason she was becoming steadily surer that it was worth keeping. And there was practical justification for it: even if this person turned out to be unfriendly she would probably be easily capable of beating them in a fight (they’d looked dead on their feet), and at minimum she’d probably be able to get directions to the nearest town from them (as presumably they would be familiar with the area surrounding the compound).

Mostly, though, said the small portion of her with the job of telling inwardly-known truths, she just wanted to hear a non-mechanized voice again, and perhaps understand a little bit more about what happened at Aperture so long ago.

Chell dwelled on the possibilities surrounding the age-old catastrophe for what she estimated to be an hour before a sound caught her attention: _swish…swish…swish…_ The wheat was moving. Her eyes narrowed in its direction as she attempted to determine whether it originated from wind disturbance or from something potentially less innocuous. It didn’t seem to her as if a breeze could create something so rhythmic, and in any case the hair she’d let down from her tight ponytail was not stirring from where it framed her face. But she couldn’t see any figure yet either. She cursed herself for slipping in her alertness and staring into the fire for too long; night-blindness was not something she’d oft had occasion to watch out for.

Finally she zeroed in on the source of the ever-nearing noise—the shape of a person, badly limping, emerged from the waist-high sea of grass, pausing only a moment before beginning an approach toward her little campsite. Chell stood and watched them come, a confusing mixture of vigilance and boldness spreading through her. She did not know how this encounter was going to end, but it was a bizarre comfort to put aside her existential thoughts from the past day and confront something she could take action about.

When the figure finally halted on the opposite side of the fire to her, standing just inside the range of light, there was a somewhat tense silence. Chell used it to thoroughly inspect who she was dealing with. A man (she assumed so, at least) of indeterminate age, clutching at a sling that kept a sizeable companion cube strapped to his back—the very individual she had glimpsed during the facility’s send-off, tattered lab coat and all. In spite of clear exhaustion and an appalling amount of fresh blood on his pants he seemed ready to bolt at any second. Feeling the beginnings of sympathy she made sure to loosen her own posture some, not inclined on frightening him further or provoking him into anything.

“Please don’t take this the wrong way,” the man began, making Chell start, “but I wonder if…I could ask if you’re real?”

Under any other circumstances the question would have been absurd, but in this situation she could see how it might be warranted: there was something in the tremor of his words that suggested he was on the edge of, if not in, pain-induced delirium. Accordingly she reassured him that “Yes, I’m real.”

He visibly sagged, his eyes shutting briefly. “Oh…oh thank goodness…” When he opened his gaze again it was to look yearningly at the fire. “M-may I…?”

As soon as she nodded her assent he staggered forward a few more steps, making sure to set his companion cube down (very gently, she noted) before crumpling into something approximating a sitting position and holding shaking hands out toward the warmth. Chell sat as well, though kept to her side. She couldn’t stop looking at him, at his wild hair and gauntness, and the sympathy from before only grew. It was fairly clear by now that this man possessed little ability—and likely even less intent—to harm her.

“Do you know your name?” she asked him, loud enough to be heard over the fire but quiet enough that she hoped she wouldn’t spook him.

Tic-like nodding preceded verbal answer. “My name is Doug Rattmann…I used to be a scientist.”

That was something she could admit that she’d feared. It also decided her next question. “Do you know my name?”

His shoulders hunched in response to the unhidden challenge in her tone. He looked at her for a moment, then away, and she worried that was a refusal to answer. But just about when her nerves prompted her to open her mouth again to speak, his gaze returned to hers and he whispered, “It’s Chell.”

Anxiety made it difficult to ask what she wanted to. Especially when their eye contact was now unbroken, and he was still looking at her like she might be a vision. “How are you so sure of that?”

Wordlessly he reached into his sling, pulling forth a manila folder that he then held out to her. Chell took it quickly, both because his grip on it wasn’t the best and because she could indeed see her name printed on the tab sticking up from one side.

Flipping through its contents was both fascinating and sickening—a lot of the information was redacted, and what was not was commented upon with curtness that rivaled GLaDOS, but it gave her a window that she’d never had before into how Aperture operated. When she’d read her fill she kept the file in her lap, fingers drumming absently against it.

“It says ‘Do Not Test’,” she said finally. In meeting eyes with the man again she could see clearly that he was still worried about her reaction to it all, but he felt relief nonetheless that she had not immediately left upon processing everything. That was interesting—did he care about that only because he was injured, or was there something else? “Why was I still slated for testing if I was on a ban list?”

“That, um—” He swallowed. “After GLaDOS started to test _Her_ way…that is, when everyone started dying…I realized it couldn’t be anyone but you. Because of your tenacity. It was always going to be you that was going to take Her down.”

Chell absorbed this. He’d confirmed what she had long suspected: that the ruthless AI had been responsible for turning the complex into a tomb. But who was this man to have made such a call regarding her life? He was speaking as if he’d personally known her. And how had he escaped GLaDOS too, when according to his own word She had systematically murdered his colleagues? Sorry for his condition she may be, but Chell did not trust this Doug just yet.

Seeming to pick up on her misgivings, he continued talking. “I watched you, once. I-it was one of your later assessment runs, I was going through a hallway when the observation group convinced me to come along to your session. You were going to be using one of the latest models of the A.S.H.P.D., you see, and it was one that I’d been working on, so they thought I would want to watch…” One hand rose, rubbing the back of his neck. “And they were right. You were—well there’s no other word for it but incredible. No one else ever solved tests the way you did, with such _innovation_.

But of course the head of the project didn’t see it that way. He didn’t see your brilliance, he only wanted to throw you out because you kept damaging his precious turrets.” He broke off then, squeezing his eyes shut, and Chell assumed his leg wound must be paining him because his voice—which had been earnest, even passionate—had become tight by the time he spoke again. “Anyway…I remember when they pulled you out at the end. I tried to get a word in edgewise on your behalf, but Richards was in full swing at that point, and I’ve never been the best at confrontations.”

Doug fell quiet after that, and she frowned. There had been more than a drop of self-loathing in that last comment. But if GLaDOS could act benign, then so could anyone else—and it upset her that she had to consider that, because she found herself wanting to believe him.

A little desperately she flipped back in her scattered memories of the facility from before they’d put her to sleep that first time, trying to recall something, anything that might corroborate what he was saying. An argument after a test…that did sound familiar. Chell looked more closely at the face of the man across from her. Maybe…maybe there was someone she’d once seen behind that messy beard.

And yet that left her with something she couldn’t get past. “How could you work for them?” she asked. “I don’t remember exactly how I came to be in the testing program, but I’m pretty certain it was because I didn’t have much else. How could you conscience being there?”

“It didn’t make me happy to work there,” Doug asserted quickly. “Or…or it once did, but once I found out about all of the ethical violations that stopped.” He leaned forward, putting his face in his hands for a time. “And when I found out what they did to Caroline…but by then all of our contracts had us locked down, the building was _literally_ locked down, and whistle-blowing wasn’t an option. Actually I guess it still might have been,” he cut in on himself, abruptly straightening, “but I…I’m a coward, Chell. That’s how I survived working there, and how I survived GLaDOS.” His eyes were bright, and he blinked several times in succession. “I had to stay because Aperture was the only place I had left too.”

She found herself, despite everything, having to quash a strange impulse to hug him. “What made you feel that way?”

He looked sharply away at that, which surprised her, and mumbled something inaudible. His frightened expression was back, but it was the guilt she saw there too that made her harden toward him once more.

“Look,” she told him, attempting not to be mean but still pointedly getting her stern feelings across, “I get that it’s probably painful to talk about, but you need to consider my position here too. If I’m going to have anything further to do with you, I can’t build it on withheld information or lies—I’ve had quite enough of that in my life already and I can’t even _remember_ most of my life before that place. Please understand that if other people had reservations about you, then before we say anything else to each other I deserve to know why.”

Throughout her speech Doug stared off into the dark to his left, biting his lip, but by the end of it he was making repetitive jerking head motions that looked like nodding. “You’re right,” he said, “you’re absolutely right, we can’t move forward unless I…”

The former scientist appeared to need a minute to work up to it, though, judging by his continually flighty body language. Chell was patient with that, giving him credit for not fleeing even though he clearly wanted to.

“I have schizophrenia,” he said finally, the words rushed, like he’d never get them past his lips if he didn’t speak them as fast as possible. “I lived in a small town not terribly far off from here, and since my diagnosis occurred when I was still young, by the time I grew up everyone _knew_ , and so even with anti-discrimination laws it was still hard to find people willing to give me a shot. Even people I’d grown up with, they started calling me ‘the crazy one’ behind my back…well at least I think they did, I obviously can’t be sure all the time…”

After a strangled sound that may have been either a laugh or a sob he began detailing some of the symptoms of the disorder to her. Chell listened raptly and without judgment, and the longer he spoke, the more she began putting two and two together.

When he paused in between sentences she quietly said, “You’re the one who drew on the walls.”

His face conveyed shock and shame in tandem, but he complied again with her request for transparency and nodded.

Having confirmation, Chell too experienced several emotions concurrently. “So when you made sure I would be the one set on GLaDOS, you didn’t just cut me loose and expect me to do everything on my own…you went out of your way to help me.”

Doug’s reply was as immediate as it was soft. “I’d do anything to help you.”

It didn’t escape her that his comment could be applied to both past and present tense. Nor was she unaware of the fact that, this time, she believed him without any caveat.

Realizing that it was important for both of them that she do so, Chell thanked him for the drawings and let him know that they had helped her immensely. She was curious about the ones that had not obviously been tailored for her, though, so did express that she’d wondered about them during her travels. He’d winced before telling her but Doug was open about the fact that those had more been to help him in a sense. Drawing was apparently one of the only outlets he had for his condition, which only grew more awful the longer he was forced off of his medication and the longer GLaDOS taunted him. Wide-eyed, she asked him how long he’d spent awake in the facility before the AI had gotten around to testing her—he admitted that he stopped counting the days because it became too distressing after the number hit four digits.

Head whirling, it was a minute before Chell could reign in her quiet astonishment enough to get out another question. “What’s the last thing that happened to you before you saw me leaving?”

Doug launched into an explanation involving cryo-stasis, detailing how he’d been compelled to drag himself into her old pod after patching her into the reserve grid when the Party Bot got her after the first explosion of the mainframe. He’d been shot, he said, which explained his limping, and encasing his body there had been his only chance of saving himself; he commented that it was another long sleep versus long sleep situation, which he considered poetic justice for what he’d been forced to do for her. Following that, the recent systems meltdowns had hit the pod’s area with a power surge that had given him a nasty wake-up call, and from there he’d followed the turret song until he’d found himself in the middle of their goodbye.

The analytical part of Chell took down every detail of his story, but a larger, more emotionally-driven side of her couldn’t get past the casual way Doug had spoken about saving her life, as if he’d do it any day without a second thought. She couldn’t focus on that though because as soon as he was done speaking her own mouth opened, telling him that he’d missed a great many things while he’d been unconscious. He agreed with her, and in turn brought tentative questions round on her about what transpired after he went to sleep.

While the landscape grew lighter around them Chell gave him a succinct version of the events; he ended up looking about as floored as she’d felt while listening to _his_ revelations.

“I’m glad,” he told her quietly after a minute of silence, “that I got to meet you in person after so long. You are one of the most extraordinary people alive.”

His words touched her, and she realized that she was glad to have met him too.

That did, however, leave them in a tricky place as to what to do next. Should they part ways now, she wondered, or continue on together for a little while? The first option left a bad taste in her mouth—even if he wasn’t injured, she doubted he had the same vapors in his system that were keeping her (for the moment) going without food or water. Since dawn was coming she figured a good place to begin would be to ask him whether he wanted to sleep.

Doug gave her a rueful sort of smile. “Truthfully, I passed out enough times on my way to you that I actually feel sort of rested.” He glanced at his blood-soaked leg, then clued her in on the fact that he’d removed the bullet himself with the help of an old med-kit before staggering his way out of the facility by way of an old loading tunnel.

Receiving this information decided Chell. “We need to get that seen to by a proper doctor. Do you know of any nearby places?”

“I might—we’ll have to see if it survived the Combine, but there did used to be a town over that way.”

She didn’t know precisely what he meant, but at least they had a plan. Chell banked what remained of the fire and extended a hand to him to help him up, and after a brief tiff about whether he should burden himself with his companion cube, they set off side-by-side in the direction he’d indicated with his arm around her shoulders. Initially he’d balked at making physical contact with her but in the end she managed to convince him it was the best way of making sure he didn’t collapse and hurt himself further. And they were of a height while she was wearing her long-fall boots, so it made the arrangement—to her mind—quite simple.

“But don’t you need to sleep?” he asked her after a little while, concern in his tone even though it was he who was making noises of pain every few seconds.

Chell shook her head, reluctant to share that she actually hadn’t slept a wink since leaving the facility. “Being knocked out so long yesterday was rest enough,” she insisted each time he asked again after that.

It was midafternoon by the time the two of them staggered into the outskirts of the town. Doug was all but unconscious at that time, relying heavily on her for support, and it was for that reason she felt compelled to thank whatever force might be listening that the settlement appeared not only populated but bustling.

It didn’t take long for a pedestrian to notice the strangers. The young man ran up to them in alarm, obviously noting that both of them needed help but particularly aghast at Doug’s gunshot wound. “Oh geez,” he exclaimed, repeating the phrase several times more in panicked tones before thinking to ask if they needed directions to the hospital.

Charitably ignoring the fact that that should have been obvious, Chell nodded and communicated to him that yes, they would appreciate it if he would send word ahead that there was a seriously injured person on the way in. “This man saved my life,” she said firmly, “more than once. It’s my turn to save his.”


	3. Scream of Consciousness

Doug stared very, very hard at the wall. Or rather, he let his eyes fix upon a point of its surface and channeled all of his focus into making his mind just as blank.

That was a task of course easier said than done. Ever since he’d woken to find himself in a hospital room he’d been at best ill at ease, at worst requiring what minimal sedation they were able to provide. He knew he was there to be healed, but it was impossible to tell that to the creature screaming in his chest—the intangible thing that writhed and wailed and fought to be free of his flesh every time he saw a piece of medical equipment or caught a whiff of antiseptic.

He’d had trouble in hospitals for a long time. An adolescence peppered by repeated visits to clinics made him tired of them from the start, and by the time he’d grown old enough to understand concepts like prejudice and misapprehension his dislike had grown too, maturing into an unfortunate combination of distaste and fear. Around and around his explanations went, over and over again came the diagnoses and dosages. Eventually they’d been able to mostly stabilize his conditions, but in his heart of hearts, Doug wasn’t entirely certain all the trouble had been worth the comparatively lesser positives.

He became aware that one of his hands was gripping the other hard enough to hurt. Promptly he removed it.

What time was it getting to be? The ache hadn’t quite returned to his thigh yet, so his medications were still recent enough to be active, but he felt like the shadows all around him had shifted angle. Would that have happened had not a lengthy stretch passed since he’d last checked the hour? A small part of him wished for a clock, in direct spite of his knowledge that the precise reason his room didn’t possess one was at his own request. Even if the device itself didn’t tick he would hear the dreadful, repetitive, crawling noise anyway, and that was something he didn’t need. His heart rate monitor was bad enough.

But he did _want_ to know the time, because what he _did_ need was company, and that was directly tied to where in the day the world was at. Chell would be coming at six, she’d promised him she would be back by six.

That they’d appropriated his companion cube was the problem. Earlier they’d been indulgent and allowed her to remain, but as soon as Chell had gone they’d spirited Cube off accompanied by such phrases as “unsanitary” and “health risk”. He’d mewled something as he’d been forced to watch them take her, trying to communicate that the _real_ health risks would manifest if he was separated from her too long, but the sound had been misconstrued as one of physical pain and all it had gotten him was another wave of morphine.

She was still in the building, Doug could feel that much at least. But he couldn’t hear her. And if he couldn’t hear her, that left room for other voices to invite themselves in—decidedly less friendly ones.

But Chell could get Cube back for him, and everything would be better. Not great, still, but not awful anymore.

He must have dozed, because the next thing of which he was aware was someone shaking his shoulder, and when he blinked the lighting in the room had acquired soft yellow tones. A nurse was mid-way through a sentence that he eventually understood was structured to tell him that his visitor had returned. Relief flooded him so thoroughly it even drowned out his anxiety at having been touched without his permission, and he sat up a little straighter to greet Chell as she was allowed inside.

“Hey,” she told him in reply, taking the seat by his bedside. She then gave him a smile, and it was the best thing Doug had seen since the relaxation pod had spat him out.

“What were you able to find out?” he asked. “Do they have any available lodgings, or…?”

Chell sighed, removing her hair band and shaking out her head before answering. “Yes, but the only room sets I could find that were open were in an older apartment building.” Her eyes held apology. “I know you asked for somewhere without long hallways if it was possible, but it doesn’t look likely that it will be.”

“I can make do,” he was quick to assure. It would cause him some problems down the line, but after his hospital stay anything would be a step up for at least a little while afterward. “I’m sorry you had to go searching around by yourself, if I was any better I would—”

“Hey.” She rested a hand on the edge of his mattress. “You’re doing plenty of hard work in here, yourself. You have a lot of getting better to do.”

If he were more skilled at articulating himself Doug would have told her how much it meant to him that she gave that much thought to his well-being—that she gave it any thought at all. He settled for falling quiet and acknowledging her words with a tiny nod.

“How have you been?” Chell continued, giving him a glance up and down. “Have there been any changes?”

He wanted to answer her, but her gaze had lingered for a moment on the tubing connected to his hand. Ignoring it had been going successfully in the hour or so before he’d fallen asleep but now it was in his awareness again and that was bad because it was there, the needle was there, there was a needle in his hand and he had to not think about that, he was not thinking about the pointed metal being in his flesh this very second distributing liquids, don’t think about it don’t think about it don’tthinkaboutit—

“Doug!”

Hearing his name broke through the creeping fog of panic. He looked at Chell, blinking rapidly, to find her staring back with clear worry; he realized why when he became aware that his pulse had shot through the roof.

The slowly-decreasing frenzy of beeps was the only sound in the room for a long stretch, until finally she spoke again. Her words were quiet. “You’re not okay, are you?”

Doug swallowed thickly, only becoming aware he’d been holding her gaze when he could no longer meet it. “No,” he admitted in a whisper. “I don’t… Places like this aren’t good. I mean, they are, but I…can’t…” His good hand made an inconsistent fist, the knuckles rubbing against one another. “Too many things have happened to me in this kind of room—being here just brings it all back at once. It would be better if I had my cube, but—”

“What happened to it?” Chell cut in with surprise.

“They took her away.” He wished he could have hidden the tremble in his voice, but stabilizing his tone was an unattainable dream when it was all he could do to even keep talking. “I think they were just concerned about her being so dirty, but now it’s been hours and they haven’t brought her back and” –he took a breath, his chest was feeling tight again– “it’s my fault, I didn’t want to tell them about my…my other problem just yet, but she helps so much and they don’t _know_ …”

“I’ll get her back for you.”

Doug’s heart skittered as he watched Chell stand up and head to the door, because not only was she helping him without his even having to ask, her statement let him know that he’d slipped and gendered Cube in front of her. He had been afraid of doing so—Chell intellectually understanding that he could be delusional and that he had hallucinations was one thing, but actually demonstrating that fact to her was completely on another level. But she’d taken it in such stride that she’d switched to the correct pronoun and gone on like the conversational speed-bump hadn’t even happened.

Quietly he wondered what he’d done in life to deserve existing in even the general vicinity of this woman.

“Thank you,” he managed to mumble when she’d come back and taken her seat again.

Chell nodded acknowledgment, a scowl on her face left over from her conversation with the attending nurse. “I can’t believe they did that,” she huffed. “You barely let go of her even when they were getting you on that stretcher, you’d think they could infer that she was important to you.”

He picked at the edge of his blanket. How could he tell her that he was accustomed to such obliviousness from others? It terrified him to admit that sometimes in Aperture he’d felt less alone with just Cube around than he had when everyone had still been alive… “Someone will be here soon with her, then?”

“Yeah. I made them expedite the order on your behalf.”

Genuinely comforted, he nodded, and from there they lapsed into mutual silence. Surprisingly the quiet was neither uncomfortable nor awkward—wordlessness suited Chell, and for his part Doug simply basked in being near someone who wanted nothing from him but still wanted to be around him.

Doug knew when the nurse was getting near because the constriction in his lungs finally started easing, and less than ten seconds later he heard from the other side of the door a vaguely shrill exclamation of _Well that only took way too long!_

He chuckled aloud, earning a look from Chell that he caught from the corner of his eye. Thankfully however her gray gaze was soon turned on the nurse, who was wheeling Cube in on a gurney. The six pink hearts gleamed; a wash must have indeed taken place.

_I’ve been spick and span for hours,_ Cube informed him primly, _and not only did they not bring me back here immediately, they had the gall, the absolute nerve, to stick me in a storage box. A storage box I tell you!_

“On his bedside table would be great,” Chell was telling the nurse, and Doug was grateful for it because internally he was laughing too hard to trust himself in saying anything aloud. It really did wipe clean at least forty percent of his anxieties just having her back again, his companion of more than a thousand days—his mood hadn’t quite done a one-eighty but he was on a definite upswing. He leaned back against his pillows and shut his eyes, enjoying listening to Cube carry on while the nurse bustled about.

By and by he heard the door shut once more. He wasn’t bothered by that, not until he felt the mattress depress from another of Chell’s attention-getting touches. It appeared she had more to say to him and had just been waiting for privacy. Doug didn’t know how much privacy he would ever have in a hospital, being casually convinced they were recording and watching everything that was going on in his room, but he opened his eyes and looked at her with curiosity nonetheless.

Chell’s own expression was guarded. “How much longer did they want to keep you here?”

“I think the doctor said I would be getting discharged tomorrow evening.” He frowned. “Why?”

She chewed her lip a moment before answering. “Because I’d like to get you out of here as soon as they say it’s okay.”

“Is there a rush…?”

“In a way…” Chell glanced around, rubbing her knee. “It’s just, I think I can feel a little of what you do.”

Doug’s heart sank. “About being confined here?” he asked.

An emphatic nod. “It feels… There’s something about the _sterility_. When I’m in here, it’s almost like I’m…”

“Back there,” he finished softly.

He had known how unlikely an outcome it was, but still he had hoped, hoped so deeply, that Chell would be spared some of the horrors of post-traumatic stress. She would experience just as uphill a battle as him, now, and he hated that there would probably be little he could do to alleviate her pain; he was barely able to cope with his own. Still, he resolved that whatever was possible for him to offer, he would.

“We’ll shoot for tomorrow, then,” Doug said with as much resolve as he could manage.

Chell had put her life on the line in countless ways in order to escape Aperture. He would not conscience putting her in a position that made it feel even for a moment as if she’d never gotten out.

_____

 

“I don’t think I like crutches,” he said haltingly, stopping to adjust his balance for the umpteenth time.

Chell shrugged, watching him with a matter of fact expression from the couch across the room. “It doesn’t look like you’re doing too badly to me. Maybe adjust where the cushions are against your sides?”

He fiddled with their position like she suggested, grunting with surprise when the new angles allowed him to spread out his weight evenly enough that he crossed over to where she was sitting with no trouble. “Thanks.”

“Sure thing.” Her eyes gave him a once-over. “Are you sure you’re ready to work tomorrow?”

It was his turn to shrug. “Why not?”

Chell had managed to secure them an apartment space, but as neither of them possessed a means of income yet, it had been a stipulation of their rental agreement that the both of them work odd jobs around the complex until they found more stable employment. His physician had vehemently warned Doug to bend his leg as little as possible, so it had been decided that the best task for him would be to wash what he could reach of the building’s many hallway walls. As per the landlord’s post-Combine, refugee-kind policy they’d been given the chance to settle in for a night in their new quarters before having to start anything; he was using the time to get used to his limited mobility.

Giving him a mild look, Chell replied, “I can think of a few reasons why not, but I’m not going to stop you.” Her stare softened slightly as she added, “Just don’t hurt yourself, okay?”

“I’ll be careful,” Doug promised.

_You’d better be,_ Cube chimed in from where she sat in the corner. _I’ve had to watch you nearly bleed out twice now, and I’d rather not go through that a third time._

He bit his lip, exhaling a huff of air through his nose to keep from delivering the reply he had to that aloud. She was acting like he’d done it on purpose.

Chell, meanwhile, had thrown a glance between him and Cube and back again. “Mine talked to me too, I think,” she shared after a moment. “Never in any words…but there were times I swore I could hear it singing.”

Doug smiled, having heard of others describe that same phenomenon. “Maybe I’ll get to hear that sometime.”

“Mm.”

Her noncommittal sound stemmed from neither of them knowing when they’d next be able to see Chell’s cube; that first night she’d had to choose between carrying it and helping to carry him, and she’d found him at the time a more pressing concern. The cube was well-hidden, though, and far enough away from the shed that she’d told him she felt comfortable going and finding it after things in their lives quieted down.

Hobbling over the last few feet to the couch, he turned and with a bit of effort sat himself down on the free cushion. “How about you?” he asked, adding “Do you think you’re ready for work?” when he realized that first question didn’t have enough context.

“I think so.” Chell chewed her lip, something Doug was learning to associate with her being contemplative. “It’s…still weird being around so many people, if I’m being honest. But I’ve managed so far.”

He nodded and decided not to press the matter any further. The hospital staff had given his injuries precedence when they’d been seen, but Chell had not been without her own wounds, and he worried whether she was giving herself sufficient time to heal. But if she claimed to be okay for the moment, then it was not his place to question her judgment.

_Especially since if you did, that makes it look like you’re snooping into her personal affairs,_ Cube put in unhelpfully. _Which even if it’s just in your head, you kind of are._

“Shut up,” he told her out of reflex, and then winced as he realized what he’d done.

Fortunately the only look Chell was giving him was one of mild amusement. “She talking about me?” she asked, jutting her chin toward where Cube sat.

Doug leaned back, passing his hands over his face and letting out an aggrieved exhalation. “Yes,” he confessed with considerable chagrin. “But probably not how you think.”

“I don’t mind either way. I’ve got a long history of non-human intelligences making comments about me, and I’m not about to start being bothered by them now.”

He couldn’t help but laugh as he ran a hand through his hair. When he brought it back down, however, something occurred to him, and he looked over at Chell. “Would you mind if I asked your help with something?”

She tilted her head. “What do you need?”

“Well, if it turns out we have scissors…could you help me cut my hair?”

A turnover of the kitchen drawers did yield the necessary shears, and so ten minutes later found them in the apartment’s bathroom attempting to shimmy them both and his crutches into a workable position in front of the mirror.

“These really are bothersome,” Doug muttered as he shifted yet again. “I’m sorry I brought you into this, it’s just it ends up looking so uneven if I do it on my own…”

“I can’t promise I’ll be any better at it,” she warned, adjusting the angle of his head. “How short did you say you wanted it in the back?”

When she was done, both stood staring at his reflection with equally uncertain looks of appraisal.

“How did I do?” Chell asked eventually, sounding half apologetic already.

“Oh, it looks great,” he assured. It was just that it’d been so long since he’d looked at himself like this—having even half a resemblance to the man he used to be. He was almost afraid to rid himself of the beard now, as he’d initially wanted to do along with cutting his hair. His features had been on the thin side even when he’d been healthy…the extent of how gaunt he’d become wasn’t something he was sure he wanted to confirm.

But Chell didn’t need to know about any of those thoughts. He turned to her, giving a smile that he hoped would chase away any further worry. “Thanks so much.”

She gave him a smile back. “I’ll go find a broom, get this cleaned up before we go to bed.”

Cube had more to say to him when he made his way back toward the couch. _I think the beard is good on you. Maybe should shave it at least once, though, just for the sake of hygiene._

“Duly noted,” he yawned. “I’ll work my way up to it.”

\----–

 

Morning was both too close and not nearly far enough away when it arrived.

Doug had spent the majority of the night in a fitful state, unable to find comfort in either the physical or mental sense. His tendency was to curl up when it came time for him to lay down, but with his leg the way it was he was obliged to stretch out on his back without moving, and that engendered muscle stiffness the likes of which he couldn’t believe. Then add in the fact that he felt horribly exposed, his center body open to whatever may drop in and try to attack him. The resulting cocktail of frustration and insecurity had been potent.

Plus, whatever the brave face he put on for Chell, he was actually nervous for his coming job. The prospect of a whole day filled with unknowable factors was, in a word, terrifying.

_So you want the night to end, but you don’t want the day to start?_

Doug considered Cube’s assessment and gave a nod when he judged it accurate. “Sounds about right,” he told her while he maneuvered his way off of the couch. The nurse had shown him a neat little method he could swing his bad leg left or right by hooking his good one under it by the ankle, and he made a happy sound upon discovering how well it worked.

By the time he’d made it to the fridge to get himself a drink he could hear Chell moving around in her bedroom, which surprised him; it was barely past dawn. He hoped he hadn’t woken her, hoped indeed that she’d managed to sleep at all. The walk to town was mostly a painful blur to him but he did recall her stubborn refusal to rest even though she’d appeared tired.

_I thought you admired her tenacity,_ Cube said, sounding bored. _When did you switch to worrying about it?_

Doug was still pondering his answer to that when the bedroom door’s lock unclicked and Chell emerged. She looked mildly startled as well to see him up and about, and commented on that fact aloud.

“Just a bit restless,” he answered, shrugging. Even if it was a poor summary it wasn’t untrue.

She nodded, coming over to do the same as him and get a drink. To eat they would have to wait until the landlord provided them with the lunch he set aside for his employees. While her water was pouring Chell stared at him a minute, and eventually the ghost of a smirk appeared on her features. “I really didn’t do too badly on that haircut, did I?”

He really had to take a moment to let it sink in: he had escaped Aperture, Chell had escaped Aperture, and she was standing in a kitchen alongside him commenting positively on how he looked. _If this is a dream, please don’t ever let me wake up._

Cube’s exasperated voice punctured the moment: _Doug, if this was a dream you’d be running for your life. All you’ve had for years is nightmares, remember?_

“No,” he said aloud in response to Chell’s words, ignoring Cube’s well-meant yet still disobliging commentary. “It came out far better than I’d have ever managed on my own.”

All too soon (didn’t _that_ seem to be becoming a trend) it was time for them to separate—Chell had been assigned to some roofing work, and Doug meanwhile was slated to stay indoors. He couldn’t even bring Cube with him, as he was going to have his work cut out for him already managing both his crutches and the soap bucket.

_It won’t be like last time,_ Doug assured himself as Chell locked up behind them. _She hasn’t been taken from me. I know exactly where she is, and that’ll be enough._

But saying something and believing it are two separate things, and he knew that very well.

Despite his concerns the first few hours passed agreeably. Through trial and error Doug worked out the best way to balance his tools and walking aids, by turns taking steps and scooting the bucket along with his good foot, and managed to clean the whole of the lobby’s walls without any incident. The front desk manager even verbally approved the end result, and he was then cleared to switch out the water and proceed to the second floor.

It was at that point that the issues began.

His and Chell’s apartment was on the ground floor of the complex, so at no time since his discharge from the hospital had Doug been confronted with stairs, and he found out after having ascended them that he’d severely misjudged his stamina. He’d had to lean heavily against the wall of the second floor hallway for a good ten minutes just to get his breath back, during which time it had been necessary to wave along several concerned passersby with assurances that he was fine. He had to be fine—lying to Chell wasn’t something he would ever do but he could damn well lie to himself if he needed to.

_Oh yes?_ The thought slipped into his head, as immediate and unwanted as the bullet that had punched into his leg. _I suppose that logic makes sense, this whole new thing you’re trying here is just a big lie anyways, might as well keep the charade going, eh?_

Doug’s teeth clenched so tightly it hurt. Not listening not listening not listening, he grabbed hold of his bucket again and lurched forward so intently back to his job that he almost lost half the cleaner on the floor in his haste.

_Drowning yourself would work out better for you than trying to drown us._ That comment was like a brand, a scorching scathing imprint on the inside of his skull. _You might want to try that, it would suit you better than whatever life it is you think you’re trying to start now._

He would not run from this, he would not whimper. He would not show anything that could give any kind of satisfaction to the ghosts. Doug kept scrubbing the wall, the motions mechanical, casting about instead to see if he could find Cube’s voice from where she sat somewhere below him.

_Ooh, he’s calling us ghosts._ Voice number one was back again, posturing, and it seemed to seek validation from the others starting to crowd in alongside it. _Maybe that’s what we are, hmm? That makes sense—that we’d all be the choir of everyone who died instead of him._

Cube either wasn’t answering him or could not hear his pleas. His hand moved ever faster and the wall was shining now, and he wasn’t sure if that was from the water he was applying or if he was having trouble seeing through the sudden tears in his eyes. Meanwhile the clamoring continued on, relentless.

_If you really want to pay homage to us, why don’t you stop being selfish and come back and join us? You’re not on some kind of pedestal above us, you’re not better than us._ The words rose to a fevered pitch. _What did you do, after all, to deserve making it out while so many other people, more_ whole _people, choked on poison or got shot to pieces? What makes you so special?! BUT THAT’S A TRICK QUESTION ISN’T IT, LITTLE DOUGIE?!_

Weight descended onto his shoulder, and Doug nearly leapt out of his skin. Heart hammering he looked around to find that its source was a hand, which belonged to the concerned-looking landlord.

“You got a bit enthusiastic, there,” the man said after a pause, jutting his chin toward the stretch of wall Doug had been working on.

Not wanting to look back around but doing so anyway, Doug checked what he meant and found it to be true: he’d managed, in his panic, to scour portions of the old paint completely away. The flakes were on his shoes.

Feeling shame and new lesser, but just as valid, dread he waited to be reprimanded, possibly even told he and Chell were to be evicted, but all the landlord had to say to him was “Just make sure you get that covered over again before the end of the day. Matching paint’s in the storeroom downstairs.”

Trying to dredge up a normal expression Doug nodded vigorously, but any illusion of calm departed along with the landlord and as soon as he was alone again he dropped his rag, struggling to stay upright and not dissolve into sobs. Of course he’d end up having to paint.

That was the only thing he was good for.


	4. Phantoms and Fingerprints

Chell had trained herself to be very, very good at doing things she did not want to do; elsewise she didn’t think she would be able to handle the city life she was now a part of. The sound was the worst aspect of it so far. Having been so recently ejected from a place where noise other than her own footfalls meant death, it was a huge adjustment to refrain from letting ‘fight or flight’ take over every time another pedestrian so much as coughed.

The whole situation angered her, frankly. She felt like she should be better than this—felt childish for having to calm her pulse every time she walked out of the (relative) safety of her bedroom. But there was nothing anymore that she could take her anger out on. Back in _that place_ she could have put a portal under a security camera to send it to the floor in a sparking heap, or used the magnetic feature of the gun to slam some sort of equipment in petty repetition against a wall—here, Outside, no one would take kindly to having their property thrown out of a window, and punching an alley wall had only led to scraped knuckles and self-depreciation.

She shook out that same hand as she stood on a street corner, trying to force out the astringent memories through the motion of her wrist. Work, that’s what she should focus on. She had to find work.

From her pocket Chell withdrew her dwindling List of Possibilities. Even before she and Doug had moved into their apartment (not that there was much to move except themselves) she had been checking out the town, wandering every street she felt remotely safe on for probable sources of labor opportunity. It had now been a week since Doug’s discharge from the hospital, however, and more entries on the list had charcoal lines stricken through them than not. Finding a foothold within an established community was hard, it seemed…

Huffing out a short sigh Chell picked randomly from the remaining addresses and began walking. Today was going to be productive, damn it.

Two hours later, she wondered how many more times she could cross something off of her list and still convince herself that elimination counted as good as anything else she could do. At this rate she was going to have to continue taking jobs around the apartment, and that was just day to day work, nothing to be relied upon. Especially since her shell-shocked roommate needed to take on most of those tasks in order to keep their lease.

The paper was already crumpled before she realized she’d made a fist with it inside; with a frown Chell shoved the evidence of her bitterness in her pocket. Where else could she go? There had to be _some_ thing.

In scanning the surrounding buildings she was yet again reminded of the unnerving fact that an alien invasion had happened and somehow she had missed it all. Doug had filled her in on what he had found out about the Combine through broken radio transmissions, and the rest she had already seen for herself when they’d made it to town that first day. From roofs to pavement everything had scars—hardly a yard could be walked without coming across structural damage or scorch marks. People had _died_ , in _droves_ , while she slept in dreamless stasis safely underground.

She didn’t quite feel survivor’s guilt, but it was still somber knowledge. Especially in light of the fact that she could very well have come from this town—her amnesia had not abated whatsoever, so Chell had no way of recalling whether anything should look familiar. Or any _one_ …not for the first time she was reminded how very alone she and Doug were. It was a melancholy vein of contemplation but they two were revenants, the last of a generation from a time Before that were now trying to keep their heads above water in the After.

Distantly she wondered, in the part of her mind in which churned forever unspoken thoughts, whether GLaDOS had actually been doing them a kindness in letting them leave.

On the trails of that reflection a fire kindled in her chest. Chell looked around at the townscape once more, trying to call up some form of recognition, and when the inevitable chasm of absence made itself again known she filled that void with the new flame: determination. So what if there were no landmarks she could yet take comfort in, or any person on the earth save one who might have a hope of knowing what she’d gone through? She decided then and there that she would forge something new.

Something Aperture could never taint or take away anymore.

In the distance Chell caught the dull thuds of a hammer pounding, and she started toward the sound.

\-----

The short, sharp screech of the whistle cut across the sunset. Chell stood, wiping her brow, and got her breath back. That last beam had been something else—the foreman hadn’t been kidding when she’d told her it had been giving the team grief for a solid week. “Good job,” Margery told Chell once she’d navigated down the scaffolding and gotten her feet back on the ground. “I don’t know why any of us had never thought to temporarily cut that bit of wall out—made the positioning a right sight easier!”

She gave a shrug to try and be modest, but still couldn’t help the proud smile that tugged at her lips. She liked Margery so far. “I was just drawing on some knowledge from my last job,” she said. “Sometimes the best route to getting something done involves a bit of breaking.”

That earned a hoot. “Too right! Reminds me of the irony of my name—a reconstruction specialist called Mar, how kooky is that?” She clapped Chell on the back. “Well, that about does it for our shift today. Normally we’d keep on into the night a bit, but our floodlights had a short and it uses up way too much of our natural gas supply if we try anything but electric after it gets dark. Let’s get you some money for your start-up pay and then we can cut ourselves loose till morning.”

Chell was rather astounded at the amount of money she’d walked away with (quite literally—as soon as she’d counted the bills she’d stuffed them in her shoe to avoid any of it being stolen). Just like Mar had with the wood, she wondered how she hadn’t considered construction work before this point.

Initially she’d been nervous about approaching the group as they pounded away at the upper floor of a two-story building, but they made it clear from the first shouted-down word that they’d be glad of the help. They’d let her join the crew for a probationary afternoon of labor and that had been that.

And Chell had honestly loved it. It had been a worry in the back of her mind when they first began—that somehow the height might not be a good thing, that it would remind her too much of using faith plates to vault over the facility’s crevasses—but rather it had exhilarated her. Breathing in fresh wind blowing through clear skies could never possibly get old, and the physicality of the tasks made her muscles sing.

On her way back home she stopped in at one of the town general stores. With her newfound salary she thought she could afford to bring back a few luxuries, chiefly some milk, a few breakfast bars and a type or two of coffee: by his admission Doug was having trouble throughout the first half of the day going on little to no food, and she herself was still having difficulty in the aftereffects of her exposure to so much adrenal vapor.

“Calories and caffeine,” she said under her breath as she weaved through the aisles, trying to ignore the uncomfortable sensation that would shudder up her spine any time another shopper walked too close to her. “Food and fuel…”

When she made it back to the apartment complex Chell greeted the front deskman on her way to the first floor hallway but didn’t stop to chat. It was the younger one today, and from some prior interactions the man she suspected he might occasionally be attempting to flirt with her—never anything unacceptable, but she couldn’t make herself feel interest if she simply didn’t have any, so she felt it best to remain a little cooler than usual around him so she didn’t unintentionally encourage something. And in any case there was another person she wanted to talk to far more.

Not for the first time she thought about how odd her relationship with Doug was, even from her own point of view. If she was being perfectly honest with herself she could not label why she had decided to rent them a single apartment together. Of course it made sense from a monetary vantage point…yet that was not the end-all be-all.

Chell hefted her grocery bag one more time and shook her head slowly as she got out her apartment key. Like everything else so far, she could just figure things out as she went. He was still a mystery but then she supposed that so was she—and they had more than enough time on their hands to puzzle each other out.

“Hey,” she called out as she locked up behind herself. With the late hour Doug had to already be home. “I’ve got some good news—I found a job today, and they paid me for my work, so I was able to go out and get us some better groceries.”

There was no reply, so assuming he was napping or otherwise busy she went straight to the kitchen to put everything away. It boosted her morale greatly to see the pantry and refrigerator begin to fill up.

When she walked back toward the small living space, however, she was surprised to find it apparently empty. In the last few days she’d found Doug stretched out across the couch by the time she’d come back. Feeling disquieted she took a closer glance around. There weren’t many places he could be; he never breached her privacy by going in her room, and he hadn’t been in the kitchen space…

A shuffling sound caught her attention and Chell focused her gaze beyond the furniture to the far corner of the room. Doug was huddled there, shoved as far back against the wall as he could get, hands raised and gnarled against his head like he was attempting to keep his skull from cracking apart. As soon as her eyes found him he made a whimpering sound, like he could tell she was looking at him even though his own eyes were directed unmoving at the floor.

“Are you okay?” was the first thing that came out of her mouth, and immediately after Chell wanted to smack herself because he so obviously was not. “What happened?” she tried asking next.

Doug didn’t answer her words beyond a heavy flinch and a stream of incomprehensible, all but inaudible muttering. Chell could see now that his hands were shaking, and that his face was near as white as his coat.

“Hey…” She took a few steps toward him and spoke up past the thrill of worry in her stomach. “Hey, look at me— _please_.”

He glanced up then, and in his mismatched eyes she saw the first flicker of awareness he’d displayed since she’d walked into the room. His lips moved, and though no sound slipped past them Chell was seized by the belief that he might have been trying to breathe her name. Moving very slowly she nodded to him, kneeling at a nonthreatening distance as she tried to figure out what to do. He looked like how she felt after waking up from one of her nightmares.

There was a soft, choked sound, and she realized he was trying to speak. His second attempt was a little stronger, and Chell was able to discern his words: “Could you tell me what my name is?”

Her heart abruptly felt too large for her chest—or was it simply that it was beating faster than it had since she’d escaped the facility? With a newly dry mouth she replied, “It’s Doug.”

Shockingly, his response was to laugh. It was short, and sounded weaker than he looked, but it was filled with relief. “Oh…oh thank god, that means you’re not one of them…”

When she recovered sufficiently from her moment of fright—she’d briefly been terrified that he’d developed some sort of memory loss—Chell tried to sort through her confusion. The logic wasn’t clear to her, but she was relatively certain that she had just confirmed to him somehow that she was not a hallucination. So, out loud, she told him, “That’s right…I’m real, and I’m here.” After a moment’s hesitation she added, “Is there something I can do to help you?”

Doug gazed at her for a time, but it seemed that the longer he looked at her, the longer something began to eat at him; he dropped his eyes.

Chell, gifted at reading people, came to the sobering realization that his posture had become one solely made up of shame. She guessed that this was by no means the first such attack to have come upon him, but that it was the first time that anyone other than Cube and perhaps GLaDOS had witnessed him in this state for any prolonged time. And he was mortified.

A thousand reassurances sprang into her head— _please, you don’t have to feel that way; I’d never do anything to harm you; is there anything I can do_ —but none made it past her throat. Instead, after some reflection, she opted for another path. “When you can,” she said, slowly, quietly, “talk to me. We can work out where we are, and what we can do about it to get you back.”

An answer was a very, very long time in coming. Chell waited patiently through the shaking, tolerated each half-glance and averted stare, rode out all of the incoherent mumbling and false starts—she wasn’t abandoning him in this any more than he had abandoned her to the Party Escort Bot.

She estimated five full minutes to have gone by the time he finally spoke. The sentence was just three words long, exhausted and meek. “Marbles on glass…”

The phrase was familiar to Chell, and she shut her eyes as she tried to puzzle out why. Dimness and gray came swirling into her mind’s eye, splashed intermittently with orange and blue, and in the haze there also eddied a memory of sound…the deep timbre of a man’s voice…a _song_.

She opened her eyes again, and whispered back to him. “Thinking too fast.”

Doug’s nod was spasmodic, his throat working in a hard swallow. He appeared simultaneously thankful and dejected that she had understood. “If I can catch myself before it fully hits it’s not as bad,” he said falteringly. “But…sometimes, I…”

There was a glimmer on his cheek, and Chell was struck by the knowledge that he’d begun crying (and that there was a not-insignificantly-sized lump in her own throat as well). The charge of emotion between them was strong now, but lest it interfere with her ability to aid him Chell refused to let herself be overwhelmed by it. Instead she flicked her gaze around the room, made an assessment, and then decided upon a course of action.

“I’m going to stand up now,” she began, making sure to outline it verbally for him before moving an inch. “And if you tell me it’s okay, I’m going to move the couch over here. When the sides touch the walls you and Cube will have that corner all to yourselves.”

Doug blinked at her, at first slowly and then several times in succession. “That…that sounds nice.”

Chell gave him a smile. “Then that’s what we’ll do.”

Moving the bit of furniture took longer than she expected—she had forgotten to take into consideration that scratching the floor was a hazard, and she didn’t wish to explain any potential gouges to their landlord—but she was eventually able to deliver on her promise of tucking Doug comfortably away. There were no windows nearby to threaten him, and even with Cube in the space as well there was room enough for him to stretch out his leg if he sat parallel to the cushions.

“Chell?”

She looked down at the soft prompt. His jitteriness had subsided some, but Doug still seemed so small huddled up inside his coat. “Mm?”

“Would you…can you maybe…” He let out a breath, glanced at her and then down again before mumbling to his feet. “I don’t know if you would want to be out here at all, but it’d be better if I wasn’t alone…I know you like your room and having the door shut when you’re in there, but m-maybe tonight you could keep it open? And then if anything happens again that way…uh, that way…what are you doing?”

While he’d been speaking Chell had climbed over the back of the couch, stretching over its length and making herself comfortable. Doug had only just noticed.

“You don’t have to use so many words,” she told him, unable to help a brief grin—their faces were very close now and she could see every line of bemusement in his brow. “I’ll stay with you.” She reached out to brush her fingers along one of his hands. “And you know nothing gets past me.”

For some reason he appeared shaken, yet this time she did not think it was from fear. “Thank you,” he said hoarsely.

He even reciprocated her touch—hesitant, gentle in taking her palm with his own and giving the lightest of squeezes. A flicker come to life and skittered in her chest, and in instinctive reply to the feeling Chell clutched back before shutting her eyes. Calming him had been important, but the day was catching up to her, and she was so tired…

In the slim fog between wakefulness and sleep she thought she heard him speak one more time, so whisper-soft she wasn’t sure if she imagined it: “You’re wonderful…you know that…?”

\-----

When she blinked back to consciousness, the first thing Chell noticed was that her hand was warm. Careful not to move too much, she angled her head so she could look down, and what she saw made her intake a quiet breath: her and Doug’s fingers had become intertwined.

A breath other than her own made her glance up once more, and she received a slight shock when she saw how close he’d huddled up to the side of the couch—he was practically on it as well, his head mere inches from her own as he softly snored.

How had he gotten that close without waking her? Chell tried to think of how that had happened and came up with nothing. In the past two weeks so much as a bird calling outside the window had been enough to shock her awake…

Chell gazed at him a while, and eventually her hesitancy gave way to gentler contemplation. She’d hardly seen Doug without lines of worry upon his face; it was nice to get a glimpse of what he could be like if life was kinder to him.

Eventually, though, it was time for her to properly rise. “Watch over him for me till he wakes up, huh?” she whispered to Cube, disengaging her hand from Doug’s with what she hoped to be the minimum possible disturbance and climbing over the couch to head for the kitchen.

When Doug finally peeked over the couch Chell had finished brewing their coffee and had gotten started on some toast. He was wary at first, as if last night he had made himself somehow unwelcome in her presence, so she made sure to smile over at him and indicate that he should come to the table if he wanted. He returned the smile with a shaky upturn of his own lips and carefully pushed the couch out far enough that he could limp through the gap.

She got him to accept a piece of toast and something to drink, but from his mannerisms Chell suspected that before she left for work today Doug wanted to bring up the elephant in the room. She allowed him to come to it at his own pace, not rushing him by starting the conversation first, but letting him find his words while she added a bit of milk to her drink. It was at the point where she was about ready to rise and pour another cup that he spoke to her.

“I’m sorry…about last night.” He wasn’t looking at her, but she could hear it in his voice that he was sincere. “Episodes like that…happen, sometimes, and there’s not a lot I can do to control them. If no one is around to ground me, they get longer, and worse…”

Chell thought of her own difficulties. “You have nothing to apologize for when it comes to that,” she let him know with quiet conviction. “I can only imagine how awful it is.”

Doug nodded morosely at his cup. “Ever since the massacres I hear the people I couldn’t save,” he whispered. “They come to me in groups, and sometimes I can even see them… Sometimes the voices are people I’ve never met, like the other test subjects. They accuse me of things too, and they’re right to.”

“The other test subjects?” Chell felt something cold trickle down the back of her neck, and she recalled a British-accented voice telling her about vegetables. “You know what happened to the rest of them?”

From across the table she could see his eyes water as he nodded. “They all died…when you shut down GLaDOS that first time the systems had a meltdown, and there was no one with the capability of getting any of it onto the backup generators. I was only able to save you…and I got myself shot doing it, so I couldn’t even get that right.”

When Chell had absorbed these facts a hard knot of realization formed in her stomach. “So you and I,” she said, speaking though every fiber of her being did not want to, “we’re both somewhat responsible for all of those deaths.”

Doug visibly shrank in on himself. “Me more-so than you,” he replied, his voice cracked. “I was the one that put you first in line for testing as soon as I could…” He put his head in his hands. “I didn’t know most of those people, but I can feel the weight of all of them—and that’s not an excuse.” He swallowed hard past more forming tears, meeting her eyes imploringly. “I’m not proud of what I did, Chell, I’m not, I never was and I never will be.”

Chell was quiet for a while before finally coming to a decision. Standing up, she crossed to him and cupped her palm against the side of his face. “And that’s what makes you a better man than Cave Johnson,” she said.

He blinked up at her in watery-eyed wonderment, and she brushed her thumb across his cheek before going to refill her mug.


	5. Wax, Wane

There was a turret in the room.

Doug had first noticed it at what he estimated to be three in the morning. He’d been in and out of sleep for a few hours, a cramp in his leg making it nigh impossible to achieve proper rest, when the noises had crawled out from the shadows clustered in the far corner: little scrapes, tapping, and then finally that smooth, unmistakable mechanical tone telling him hello.

On the off chance it was actually there, he dedicated the next several hours to lying stiff as a board.

The situation reached its peak tension when Chell emerged from her room to ready herself for work. _It’s not real,_ he repeated in his head, desperately attempting to convince himself of the likeliness that fact because otherwise his friend was about to be shot, _it’s not real it’s not real it’snotreal—_

Chell crossed the length of the room. She started the coffee maker, opened the fridge, put something in the toaster. She did not get shot.

Little by little, Doug’s muscles loosened. A hallucination after all…his weary soul was comforted by that, sad as it was.

Still, though, he didn’t move. Chell wasn’t going to feel ignored if he didn’t say good morning—he’d remained in his play-acted state of apparent sleep even at the height of his terror, so she wasn’t aware he was awake—and he didn’t feel calmed down enough yet to interact with her in any meaningful way. It was best just to let her leave, and begin his own routine once he was alone.

As alone as he could feel in the ‘company’ of Aperture tech, anyway.

_Way to forget about me,_ Cube told him in response to that thought.

“I could never forget about you,” he said, and the distress in his tone seemed to mollify her.

_In any case, you’d better get yourself up. The girl left while you were ruminating over there so things are all safe now._

Doug sighed, knowing she was right but not looking forward to what would be set in motion once he obeyed her advice. Today was the day of The Appointment, and he dreaded it.

He stiffly worked his way off the couch, but as soon as it saw him moving the turret used its front legs to rap so enthusiastically at the floor that it might have been auditioning for a tap-dancing competition. He just shoved the heels of his hands against his eyelids and attempted to put it out of his mind; he tried to focus instead on what he wanted to eat. Maybe just toast—on such a nervous stomach something bland seemed best.

The noise never stopped bothering him, though, and by the time he was nearly done with his coffee Doug’s frayed nerves had acquired even more split ends. When the turret finally spoke to him outright, asking that dreadfully familiar question “Are you still there?”, he lost his temper.

“Why are _you_?” he barked back at it, glaring it down where it continued to sit in the corner. Its only response was an innocent little chittering sound; Doug had to hold back a growl.

_…It wouldn’t be, you know,_ Cube broke in quietly, _if you followed the girl’s advice._

He pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed as he recalled the conversation in question. The evening after his breakdown earlier in the week, Chell had delicately asked him whether or not he wanted to acquire any medication to treat his psychotic symptoms. He’d been contemplating that himself already, and had an answer ready for her: no, he didn’t want to try to find any pills. In that moment of raw openness he shared a very personal truth with her—that he’d weighed things and knew beyond doubt that he needed Cube more than he needed the bad voices to go away.

“She wasn’t overtly telling me to do anything,” Doug mumbled, staring down into his cup. “She was just concerned for me.”

As he limped his way out the door a little later, however, he felt his self-certainties waver in time with his gait. Objectively he could not pretend he wasn’t vaguely troubled by the knowledge that he was in a sense feeding his own delusions—he was quite aware that Cube was as much a crutch as the literal one he was at that moment using to keep himself upright. Only any practitioner of medicine would probably tell him that she was far less healthy.

Doug rationalized his behavior and corresponding decisions, however, with his own personal experiences serving as evidence in favor of his choice. He’d tried going back on his medication when he’d reached his peak desperation in Aperture—all a ‘stabilized’ mind had gotten him was loneliness, uncertainty, and a bullet that had only barely missed being fatal.

Getting to work on his chores for the day, he kept up a stream of self-encouragement under his breath: “Just because it _should_ be healthier, doesn’t mean that it is, or that the road to getting there is even worth it.”

_Better the devil you know._

\-----

“Douglas Rattmann.”

His hands twisted in his lap. What was it now? Could he not catch even one break? Of course they would have to come bothering him again right as he was trying his best to ride out all of this adrenaline. Were a few moments where he could have an anxiety attack in peace too much to ask?

“Doug Rattmann?”

The voice was louder now, and he slowly opened his eyes, the hospital around him creeping back into his senses. A nurse with a clipboard was standing by the door that led to the patient rooms and scanning the waiting room with the beginnings of impatience.

Doug belatedly realized that the first time he’d heard his name had not been a hallucination after all, and he hurried to stand up and catch the man’s attention. “That’s me—sorry, I’m here, I’m sorry…”

_Don’t feel too bad,_ Cube whispered to him as they were led to the examination room. _You can’t be blamed; it’s usually only the dead ones who call you anything other than Doug._

Her reassurance comforted him only by a fraction. He’d just been handed shorts and instructions, and was really not looking forward to enduring the next half hour. There were no scenarios he could envision where being poked and prodded would be an enjoyable thing, and joy of joys, that table looked _cold_.

Yet Doug, knowing he had little alternative, obeyed every command the nurse gave him. Like the good little lab rat he was, he was up and stretched out on the faux leather cushioning by the time the doctor arrived.

Most of his energies throughout the examination were directed toward attempting not to squirm, so he only caught about every third or fourth phrase of assessment that was spoken to him. There was some sympathy, some jargon he was unfamiliar with, and toward the end, a pleased remark or two. Nothing came through to him clearly, though, not until—

“And I think we can finally get you off of that crutch—”

“I can walk without it now?” Doug broke in, relief sparking up and crackling through his chest. The assistance had been helpful, but more and more he’d been feeling its cumbersome nature too. This clinic visit was more than worth it if it meant he could be shot of the thing soon.

“Without the crutch, yes,” the doctor agreed, and he didn’t pick up on why the words were being spoken to him slowly until the sentence was continued upon: “But you’re not well enough off that I feel comfortable discharging you without something else. We’ll be putting you on a cane, to be used until such time that we can assess you again and find that you’re of even strength in both legs.”

Doug blinked. The spark in his chest hesitated, sputtered. “…that sounds like an indefinite timetable.”

“It is, unfortunately—your muscles don’t seem to have knitted the way we ideally would have liked them to, and…”

The words faded out after that, and Doug felt time beginning to slip in that way it tended to when he became overly upset. The luxury of feeling like ‘himself’ came back only after he’d left the hospital building and was standing on the street outside with an unfamiliar bit of wood in his hands and disappointment in his heart.

_I don’t think we have to look at it as all bad,_ Cube murmured, attempting a bolstering tone. _You look kind of posh, now._

He snorted, gazing down at the cane. Vaguely he recalled having to show the doctor he could use it properly, but the memory didn’t feel solid, like it hadn’t really been him performing the actions. Thinking about getting home now, he wasn’t sure where to begin.

_Left hand grip._ The prompt was gentle. _Step slow at first, with your weight more into your palm, and take your time finding your rhythm._

Doug sighed. He was held back from answering her directly since they were in such a public spot—which was a distressingly difficult thing to have to keep in mind—but hoped Cube could feel his gratitude somehow anyway. With a forcibly cheery exaggeration about getting the train wreck rolling, they were off toward home.

By the time they were locking the apartment door behind them, however, his mood had begun to sour again. His arm was unused to being put to so much work, and was his non-dominant one besides, so his progress had been as ache-inducing as it had been snail-paced; he was about ready to just chuck the cane and resume walking with some kind of normalcy, if with a limp. But then having that thought kicked his anxious tendencies into overdrive, and he gripped the cane tight with sudden and crippling ( _god_ , the irony of that word) fear that he would ruin his leg forever if he didn’t keep it close at all times.

_Doug, you need to cut this one off._ Cube’s voice was steady, just urgent enough to catch his attention but refraining from adding to his stress. _Find something to do, drown it out until it’s gone._

He realized that she was right—underneath her voice he could hear other murmurs that had escaped him before. Stopping this bout of anxiety now was even more important if he was going to have to contend with a whispered conversation in the back of his mind as well. At least the turret had gone, he observed as he headed to set Cube down, that would make things easier… Once his companion’s comfort had been seen to, he cast about the apartment for something he could use, some manner of distraction—aha! There! Doug grasped the pen off the kitchen counter, went back to the living area and sat down to work.

He was still drawing on his arm when Chell came home, which resulted in a very strange “Hello” indeed. Doug rather thought, when he looked back on it later, that it had been the most freeze-frame moment he’d ever experienced: he, halfway through the swirl of another of several dozen spirals, looking up to lock eyes with Chell, who’d been midway through pocketing her keys, and remaining in a kind of silent staring contest until he had managed a weak smile by way of both greeting and apology.

“This must look so strange,” he said, embarrassment kicking in his near-instinctual self-depreciation. “I swear it’s not something weird, drawing is just something that helps me calm down and I didn’t want to waste any paper, not when it’s become a precious commodity nowadays—”

Chell was chuckling. “You don’t have to justify anything,” she told him, coming over to sit next to him. “If something helps you, it helps you.”

He smiled again, shy now about having been so motor-mouthed about it. She really didn’t seem to be put off, or judging him… “It helps more than I can ever explain.” Looking down at the lines of bluish-black on his skin, he was compelled to try and share the feeling. “All the static in my head, all of the bad…if I can get into just the right groove, it’s like I can drive it out through my fingers, even if just for a while. Even just doodling, like this, can be enough. The repetition can be really grounding.”

Chell was gazing at the designs now, too, and in apparent absentmindedness reached out to trace along one line with her fingertip. Doug, contrary to his custom, did not flinch at the contact—for once someone else’s touch felt safe.

“How did you learn that that could work?” she asked eventually.

“I have a few art therapy texts one of my psychiatrists recommended to me a long time ago. I’d flip through them on my breaks, occasionally, and once everything…happened, I was able to make use of them. They’re still in my bag, as a matter of fact…” He sensed that Chell had something on her mind, but she’d only voiced the one question, so he kept his answer limited to what she’d asked and hoped the ‘if you need them’ implied in his last remark wasn’t too blatant or unwelcome.

If Chell caught his unspoken offer she didn’t show it, simply nodding in a thoughtful way. But then her eyes slid beyond his arm, landing on his new cane, and the conversation shifted topics quite quickly. “They still don’t think you’re well enough to walk on your own?”

Doug knew and was comforted by the fact that the dismay in her tone was on his behalf—he’d confided in her some of his negative feelings about being reliant on the crutch. Resignedly nonchalant, he replied, “They pretty much told me I lamed myself in the process of trying not to die.”

Her hand was still at his arm; she gripped it lightly. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay.” He looked down at his lap. “When it comes to hospitals, I’m used to walking away with bad news.”

“Well let’s try to make it not all bad, then,” Chell said after a moment’s thought. “Have you tried naming it yet?”

That got him to glance up again, intrigued. “What?”

“You know, like how I called your crutches Left and Right before they moved you on to just having one.” Her ingenuity was showing, a spark in her gray eyes. “That was just a joke because it was pointless—I mean how could you have told which was which? But you’ve got a chance here to make the cane have a positive association. If you give it a name, it can almost be like it’s just another friend on your side that’s devoted to helping you.”

Chell’s kindness did strange things to Doug. Each of its forms he’d been gifted so far had overwhelmed him, and unused to such poignant happiness his mind tended to mislabel the feelings as some kind of pain, resulting in a sunburst of emotion in his chest that he could only describe as a joyful ache. “Thank you,” he murmured, briefly laying his hand over hers. “I’ll give that idea some thought.”

Later on, during dinner and apropos of nothing, Doug looked over the table at Chell and said “Grimshaw.” She gave an enthusiastic nod without even having to ask what he meant.

\-----

Over the course of the next several days, Doug slowly grew more comfortable using the cane. He took to practicing walking with it around the apartment before work, and by week’s end he’d stopped having to think about each and every step—his muttered mantra of “one, two, one, two” became a thing of the past. He could even feel his hand gradually beginning to cramp less and less at the end of each night.

And—not that he would ever admit it aloud—Grimshaw’s derby style made him feel a bit distinguished as well, like Cube had said he could view himself when he’d first been bestowed it.

On Friday night Chell arrived back at the apartment before him, which was unusual. “Hi,” he told her when he stumbled upon her in the kitchen, as confused to see her as he was pleased. “I thought you’d said that Mar projected this whole week to be a bunch of long evenings for your team?”

“She did,” Chell confirmed, “but I asked her to let me go a bit early today. I had some business to take care of.”

She had a rather Cheshire-like grin, and Doug paused in pouring his drink. He’d hardly seen his roommate so mischievous. “Do I get to know about the business?”

“You do.” She had a definite air of pride about her features. “That’s why I made sure to get in here before you, actually, so it could be a proper surprise.”

Luckily his curiosity far won out over his anxiety about unknown things, and he grinned a bit back. “Show me the way.”

That was all the prompting Chell needed, apparently, because she was off through the door with speed. Doug followed her to the living room space. He hadn’t yet been in here since coming home, and he looked about with significant intrigue to see if he could identify anything that had been changed. His gaze fell upon his blanket—it had been temporarily moved from its folded position on one of the couch’s arms, now draped over something next to the space’s windowless wall.

Doug looked to Chell. She went over to stand next to the mystery object, taking hold of the blanket and readying to tug it away.

When she’d done so (with a flourish) Doug gasped. “How…?”

A new wooden chair sat proudly in their living space, piled high with pots of paint and brushes in an assortment of sizes. They’d been arranged so he could see all of the colors—an impressive nine separate shades—and equipment clearly, all of it apparently awaiting his use.

“I asked the landlord if we could have all of the old painting things in the basement that he doesn’t use anymore,” Chell explained, sounding pleased with herself. “It’s the shabbier stuff, the paint’s old for instance and some of the brushes are frayed or a bit broken, but that’s why he was happy to get it out of there so he could free up some space.”

While she was speaking Doug limped over to the chair, running his fingers along a few of the brushes. Chell spoke truthfully—most of them were run-down…but what better equipment for a run-down man to use?

Chell continued talking, successfully picking up that he was silent from joy rather than disappointment of any kind. “And I made sure to ask this, as well: we’re in the clear for you to make whatever you like on that wall there as long as we live here. His only condition was that we paint back over everything with the original wall color if we ever move out.”

Doug stared up at the welcoming stretch of blank space, swallowing hard past a lump in his throat. “Chell,” he said. His voice was cracked. “Can I hug you?”

She lifted her arms to him, and had Doug been the shorter of the two he’d have all but fallen against her in the embrace. As it was he just wrapped his arms around her, pressing his cheek against her hair as he whispered the thanks he would never be able to say enough.

\-----

By Sunday morning the painting wall had gained an impressive variety of linework. Doug had done little that first night, since he’d already been tired from the day, but Saturday hardly saw him leave the living room. It was simply too good to be able to do it again—to devote himself entirely to something creative, to something that could expunge the demons. And in a consequence-free environment, too; save the occasional phantom there were no turrets now that could pose him danger.

_Well, almost consequence-free,_ Cube reminded him. _The girl’s not keen on you forgetting to, say, eat. Or drink._

“I don’t forget,” Doug murmured, his mind only half on the conversation. He was following the curve of a brushstroke he’d just made, wondering if it was going to work after all. Maybe he should wipe that off before it dried, try it again…

“If you’re carrying on about the food thing again,” Chell’s voice called from the couch, “call it ‘being in a groove’ all you like but yes you bloody well do forget—it took you three hours to finish your dinner yesterday.”

There wasn’t any malice in her tone, but Doug nonetheless pulled a wounded look as he glanced back at her. “I can’t help it if supper and a burst of energy overlap,” he said.

“What about morning routines and bursts of energy?”

Doug tilted his head. “What do you mean? What didn’t I do?”

Chell closed her book and got up from the couch to approach him. “I’m going to shave tomorrow, this scruff has gotten out of hand.” She put her fingers down from their position as air quotes and pointed at his jaw. “The moderate scruff you were concerned about is still there, hate to tell you.”

Oh, god, was it? He rubbed a palm on his cheek and to his embarrassment found that she was correct. “Okay,” he admitted, “maybe it’s me that’s more out of hand than this beard…”

“Do you hear that?” Chell asked, looking conspiratorially over at Cube. “He’s relenting!”

_I know—what a shock._

Doug got a hearty chuckle out of that ‘exchange’ as he stood up to stretch. “They gang up on you, they gang up on you…”

“Just ‘cause we care,” Chell told him, giving his arm a lighthearted prod with the corner of her book.

He smiled at her. “Well, I’m going to go ahead and get on with that now that we’re in a pause mode—if I keep going I’ll just end up forgetting again, and nobody need be forced to look at what this slovenly mug’ll be like if that happens.”

Doug made to move off, but was halted by the curious look that had come over Chell’s expression. “You think having a five o’clock shadow makes you seem slovenly?” she asked.

“Doesn’t it?” He’d always been taught that a clean-shaven face was a sign of professionalism. The only reason he’d let his appearance become wilder back in Aperture was because it…hadn’t seemed like a very good idea to seek out the use of sharp-edged tools on his person.

She lifted a shoulder, let it fall again. “I don’t know. But since I’ve seen you with long hair and a long beard _and_ with short hair and no beard, I can say from my perspective that you look fine any which way.” She shrugged a second time. “I guess I’m saying for what it’s worth, you can pull off the unshaven thing.”

Chell wasn’t making consistent eye contact with him anymore, and any reason why that might be was hopelessly lost on Doug until Cube’s voice slipped into his ear, nearly a hoot: _I think she’s trying to tell you she liiiikes the beard. Scruffy Boy’s winning some points!_

“Ohhh my god, be quiet,” Doug ordered her, jabbing a finger in the heart-covered box’s direction before burying his face in his hands. It was his turn to be embarrassed now.

“What’s up?” Chell asked hesitantly, understandably lost.

“She’s—teasing me.” He settled on communicating that much but nothing more. “Thank you for that, though,” he added with sincerity. “Knowing you think that way does make me feel better. Back when I was stuck in the job application machinery, before Aperture took me on, I always felt like I would lose out if I didn’t look how I was raised to think was my best.”

“Who in the world says facial hair can’t be involved in someone’s best look?”

Her aghast tone, exaggerated but no less honest for it, made Doug laugh again. “Just ghosts, now. I’ll tell them you said to shut up.”

After an exchange of wolfish grins they separated from one another, Chell off to the kitchen in search of a snack and Doug to see to his shave.

As he stood in front of the mirror and carefully dragged the blades over his skin, however, he did give consideration to this potentially being the last time he do so for a while. If beards were okay by his roommate, then he wouldn’t…be averse to letting one grow out again…

He felt his cheek grow warmer, and told his reflection to cut out that flushing business before anybody saw.

When he returned to the living area Chell had retaken her seat on the couch and was munching on something resembling pretzel sticks. “So what’s this new one mean?” she asked him, using one of them to point at his latest addition to the wall. “I wouldn’t normally want to pry, but it’s a little…”

“Unusual?” Doug supplied, a wry smile upturning his lip as he joined her on the sofa. “Well, it’s sort of mundane, really—I just really, really wanted a bath when I woke up this morning, and that’s my way of venting my frustration with the fact that I can’t have one.”

Chell frowned sympathetically. “How many more months?”

“Four.” Doug tapped his thigh. “The doctor said I can’t submerge the scar until it’s completely done closing itself over.”

She shuddered. “I can’t imagine having to wait that long for a bath. Especially since you haven’t had a proper one in…how many years?”

“I can’t even remember,” he sighed, stealing a stick out of her snack bag and nibbling at it. It’d occurred to him that he hadn’t had a very substantial breakfast and his stomach was in a mood to encourage thievery.

Chell, meanwhile, was giving him a sidelong look. “You know,” she said slowly, “something just occurred to me—how old are you, actually? I know it’s probably a bit murky since you stopped counting days while I was asleep, but do you have a rough estimate?”

Doug blinked. “I…don’t think I do,” he realized with a shard of alarm. He froze up a bit as calculations that were a touch desperate ran through his head. “My best guess would be…somewhere in my mid to late thirties? Definitely not forty yet though!”

She appeared amused by his stammering attempts to confirm. “Well, just let me know when the right season for your birthday comes around. We can celebrate it somehow.”

Quietly gratified, he was quick to return the sentiment. “And we can do the same for you, whenever you like.”

“Like I could pick a day?” They were both aware that the file on her that he’d kept so safe did not contain information on her date of birth. She mused on it a little while, her eyes straying to the mural wall as she thought. “Maybe the day I escaped…no,” she cut in on herself soon after voicing the notion, “I don’t want anything that’s supposed to be happy to be associated with that place.”

Doug smiled at her. “Well, whenever you make a decision, just let me know. I’ll paint you something.”

The sunny look she gave him in reply stayed with him all afternoon.


	6. Chandelier Sky

Chell was able to ignore the nausea at first. It had started out manageably enough, just a subtle churning somewhere below her throat. But by lunchtime she was feeling it so thoroughly that her break felt more a trial than a blessing—she stared at the food she’d packed without the slightest ability to make herself begin eating it.

“You all right there, girl?” Margery fell into the seat opposite Chell, appearing to have noticed her discomfort.

“I…” Chell trailed off of the lie she had been about to tell. Over the past few weeks she’d slowly been training herself to not simply try to power through everything, and admit when she needed rest or help. “Not really. I’m feeling pretty sick today.”

The other woman frowned sympathetically. “Ah, caught yourself a bug, huh? That happens pretty frequently this time of year. The summers are the time for that around these parts, now.”

She nodded through the explanation like it was the first she’d heard of it, maintaining her cover that she had come into town after travel from another part of the country. Neither she nor Doug had felt like explaining, or indeed felt like they even could explain, their real situation, and had felt that opting for a generic traveling refugee story would be best. She did feel bad that she was lying a little to her boss, since she knew the nausea came from a different source than a flu, but it was easier to piggyback on what Mar thought was the case. “Do the illnesses tend to pass quickly, or…?”

“Depends, I suppose. How’s your immune system?”

The words had been said jokingly, and Chell chuckled to play along, but privately she was feeling even more queasy trying to contemplate how utterly shot her body’s germ-fighting mechanisms might be. Who knew what she’d been exposed to in Aperture, even before falling into the Old sector…

Margery was talking again. “You think you may want to take the rest of the afternoon off, hon? You do look a mite chalky.”

They usually weren’t allowed to end a shift early unless it was for an emergency, so Chell supposed she must look pretty bad indeed. “That…might be best,” she conceded. “If I can’t give a hundred percent I don’t want to hold the rest of you back.”

Mar bobbed her head. “Or worse, end up hurting yourself. Well alright, you go on home, then. Maybe stop in at the hospital on the way there, if you think you need.”

Chell murmured an assent as she began to pack up to go, but privately she didn’t think it would be likely she would be visiting that sterile building again anytime soon, even if she was ill. She’d braved it on Doug’s behalf but she would damn well spare herself that unpleasantness if she could.

Though even with his own issues with the place, Doug might drag her there later if she got too bad…that was beside the point, though, and Chell wasn’t about to worry about yet another ‘maybe’ situation.

“I’m just going to go rest,” she muttered to herself, decidedly.

\-----

Going home, in one of the cruel twists of irony that were fond of peppering her life, ended up as much of a mistake as taking herself to the hospital would have been.

She’d thought going to work was going to be fine, as it usually mostly was, but today there had been so much more noise than usual, so many more loud tools and banging and all it had done was aggravate that one lingering problem to the point of incapacitating her. But the apartment was almost worse—the banging had imbalanced her into nausea, but it had covered up the noise at least, and back here in the quiet, empty living room there was nothing to prevent her hearing it.

Chell sat on the arm of the couch with her head in her hands, trying to will away the static-ridden ringing in her right ear.

She remembered having brief experiences with tinnitus, as most people do at some point in their lives, but that had been the garden-variety come-and-go sort—a passing thing that was over before it began in most cases and occurred at points few and far between during her trek through Aperture. This was different. This, she knew, was injury-provoked, and that knowledge made her feel sicker than the physical nausea induced by it did, because as far as she could tell there would be no getting rid of it.

It had been those damn explosions. That final fight and the facility wrenching itself apart had simply damaged her eardrum, and now it was displaying sensitivity to any sort of loud sound. She hadn’t noticed it so much in those first few weeks on the surface, but over time she’d put together the grim pattern—loud, close-by sound equaled a spike of pain and a persistent, low crackling that lasted up to an hour. She’d been shut up in the apartment for a good three hours now. And still the sound carried on in unremitting Morse code-like streaks.

Holding your hands to your ears is a simple enough affair, but shutting something out becomes infinitely more difficult if its origin lies on the inside of the ear.

“Just stop,” she groaned, the plea muffled by her arms over her face.

She felt like she wanted to ask Doug what he would do, but he had not been home when she’d arrived there and she didn’t feel like traipsing all over the building and possibly beyond trying to find him. She’d just bring it up with him when he got back.

Until then…

Thinking of him had given Chell an idea. Not terribly long ago she’d found Doug staving off an anxiety attack by doodling over and over on his arm; why should the same method of redirection not work in her case? She went into the kitchen to retrieve the writing implement from where they kept it in a drawer, and then returned to the couch to see if her plan would come to any sort of fruition.

She did hesitate, however, as she gazed down at her arm. In theory it would be simplest to sketch there, but unlike her roommate she did not possess a coat with which to conveniently hide any marks she might make, and in any case the warm daytime weather made it unsuitable to wear any long-sleeved garment while the sun was up anyway.

_Maybe my calf, then?_ she thought, shifting her weight so she could roll up one leg of her pants to her knee. It would certainly be easier to hide the evidence of her distress that way.

But there was something Chell didn’t count on. Distracted as she was by her hearing troubles, she had forgotten that revealing her leg would also put those ragged scars into her vision. Raised and gnarled and starkly whitish against her skin lay the evidence that she’d once worn Aperture prosthetics there, uncomfortably installed and likely violently removed. She did not care to contemplate how much that place had maimed her, both inside and out, and yet here she’d gone and put the incontrovertible proof of it right in her own face.

She tugged the fabric back down and tossed the pen onto the other side of the couch.

How did Doug manage in situations like this? Chell looked to his mural wall, but did not find much help there. A good number of the things he’d painted so far were abstract, and not all of them seemed to pertain to his experiences in Aperture, so without him there to explain their context there was little hope of her gleaning significant insight from them.

Then again…maybe she didn’t need to understand them. Maybe she just needed to _look_.

Chell got up from the sofa, choosing instead to sit in Doug’s painting chair. Starting in one corner and working her way across, she allowed her eyes to wander over the sometimes chaotic lines of color. The feeling she got, which only grew stronger the more time she remained there, was that gazing at his artwork kindled in her the same kind of effect that she imagined a person might receive from listening to a sorrowful melody with their eyes closed. But instead of making the weight of her problems worse, their burden seemed to begin receding, like the tide under the guiding pull of the moon…Doug had painted the cycle of the moon, just there…

Her growing sense of catharsis was interrupted, however, when her eyes caught on one specific picture. Chell stared at it, stared at the tiny, quarter-sized piece of it that had stopped her gaze, for a good minute and a half before abruptly standing up and leaving the apartment. She was not angry with Doug for the picture, nor did she blame him for her reaction to it in any way—it was just that with everything else going on inside her head she couldn’t handle that particular color right now.

\-----

The noise in her ear had finally stopped, at least. Chell knew it would likely be back with a vengeance the next time any loud sound happened in her vicinity, but for now she allowed herself to feel relief that one of the things haunting her today had seen fit to cease.

She dangled her legs over the side of the building, absently kicking the wall with one heel and looking out over the other moonlit rooftops of the town, trying to focus on nothing but the soft silver light.

Chell felt him behind her before she heard him. She said nothing, though, commenting on neither her own reasons for being on the roof nor her opinion on his presence, and allowing Doug to limp to her side and take a seat on the edge next to her.

They sat in agreeable silence for a while, neither demanding anything of the other by word or by stare, until Doug noted something in a judgment-free murmur. “You’re tugging at your shirt.”

She looked down. “…oh.” Her fingers stilled over the long-picked-out Aperture logo, slowly dropping back down to her lap. “Yeah, I guess I do that sometimes.”

He gave a slight smile. “I’m the same,” he let her know, holding his coat open such that she could see the tattered rectangle of space above his breast pocket. “As many reminders as it carries, I need this old thing…it’s become like a friend after so long being the only thing that kept me even a little warm…but you can bet that damn corporate thread was gone pretty quick after everything went to hell.”

Chell appreciated so deeply how many things she’d been able to bond with him over. “I think I would burn this top, personally, if clothing was something you could get rid of here without guilt,” she joked. “But I figure it’s getting back at them a little bit, you know, to use it as a nightshirt instead. Now it’s something for rest instead of their precious productivity.”

Doug clearly approved of this line of thinking. “That’s a great thought. God,” he sighed, “I swear pettiness can be so satisfying. It could _so_ easily have gotten me killed, but I couldn’t help talking back to GLaDOS sometimes.”

“Really?” Chell was both surprised and intrigued. “What kinds of things did you say?”

Nervous pride sparked in his eyes. “One time I told her to bite me.”

Chell _laughed_ , and god if that wasn’t the best bit of knowledge she’d gained in _weeks_. “I have so much respect for you right now.”

“I couldn’t help it,” he repeated, chuckling a little himself now. “My entire file was at her disposal, so sometimes the insults got too personal to not sling something back at.”

“She didn’t have my file, but I know what you mean.” She shook her head. “Man did I have some choice things to say sometimes, but I’d already been refusing to give them the satisfaction of talking back and I was too stubborn to let go of that mode of operation.”

“That might have saved you, too,” Doug pointed out. “By essentially goading them into talking more to try to fill your silences, you may have needled them into revealing more information you could make use of than they ever intended.”

Chell blinked. “I’d never thought of it like that.”

“Look at you—a genius, and you didn’t even know it.” He smiled, but then a shadow passed over his expression. “I can’t believe them, reducing you to just a tenacity statistic.”

Chell was quietly pleased by his apparent sense of legitimate offense at how she’d been treated by the testing officials. “It’s not just me who never gives up,” she replied, a little shy to say so but needing him to realize it. “You never gave up on me, either.”

Doug was a fairly pale man, so when he flushed, even a little, it was obvious. His voice, though, held no stammer. “I never will.”

That statement was what gave her the confidence to explain part of why she had come up here tonight, even though he (quite considerately) had so far not asked her to. “…I’ve been having some trouble with my ears lately,” she began, casting her eyes out again at the surrounding townscape.

“You mean, like…deafness? Or persistent ringing?”

She nodded. “I think it’s from being so close to so many explosions. The one side’s been damaged, I think, and now it’s really sensitive to anything louder than a door slam. Work ended up being really bad for that today, even with sound protection, and even though I came home early the effects lasted for hours.” She heaved a deep sigh. “It’s just really starting to get to me…the noise just wouldn’t _stop_. And there was nothing even _there_ , it was driving me up the wall…”

He was quiet a minute, and when Chell glanced over again and saw the vaguely awkward expression on his face, she immediately understood why.

“Oh god, Doug, the hearing things thing—” Her stomach knotted with shame, and she turned away and pressed the heels of her hands into her eyelids. “I wasn’t thinking when I said that—I’m so sorry…”

“It’s okay.” He touched her arm, and she looked back at him to find he now wore a gentle smile. “I know you didn’t mean anything by it. And in any case I’m definitely more inclined to be empathetic than resentful—a house burning down on one side of a town doesn’t invalidate one swept away by a flood on the other.”

She knew she would still feel bad about her flippancy the rest of the night, but Chell returned the smile anyway. “Are we really that chewed-out a pair?”

“Oh, completely. We’re hopeless—utterly ramshackle.”

His faux-serious, assuring tone made her laugh, and she could feel her spirits lifting. God, how strange it was to think that she could have chosen to separate from Doug after making sure he was going to recover; to think that she would have ended up somewhere completely different, missing out entirely on all his company had come to mean…

He was still smiling at her, and Chell felt again one of those little skitters that would race through her chest when he looked at her that way—with that combination of hesitancy and happiness that added up to a soft sort of hopeful. She could only name the subtle expressions because she found herself, on occasion, quietly feeling those same things.

The impulses attached to those feelings were still too new to her, however, and as she had some time ago when discussing his beard, Chell was the first to break eye contact. She fixed her eyes on the ceiling of stars, readjusting how she was sitting and rubbing her arms against the light chill. “I haven’t been outside at this time of night since I was set loose,” she commented, just as something to say. “I’d forgotten how far the temperature could drop once the light’s gone.”

“Would you like my coat?”

Chell blinked with surprise at herself when her first instinct was a grateful nod. She’d had to psych herself up to admitting weakness to Margery earlier, her reflexive defenses up even though they had never been on anything but friendly terms. By all rights this situation should have been no different, but apparently…

There was a quiet shuffling of fabric, and then she was warm, the garment—sized for a frame lean like hers, but identifiably taller—draped carefully over her shoulders. It was just as battered as the man who owned it, but the coat had held Doug’s body heat well, and she gave a contented sigh. “Thanks.”

He murmured an acknowledgement, and for a while a comfortable silence ensued. He did speak up again eventually, however, and Chell’s eyes stilled in their trace of a constellation as his question sobered her mood once more.

“Are you doing okay?”

It took her some time to answer. She knew he wasn’t just talking about her physical ailments now. He’d noticed— _of course he noticed_ , she thought, with the kind of vaguely pleased dismay one experiences when someone sincerely cares enough to ask after you when they see you hurting—that she seemed to avoid going or looking outside after sunset. Just as it had not escaped her that he would sometimes leave the apartment in the still of the night. And she knew enough of him to know that there could be no other place he was going to than here on the roof; it was after all why she’d decided to attempt this small outing in the first place. It helped him, so…maybe…

“I don’t know,” she replied, finally. “After the testing program, I’m just not used to being able to…stop. I don’t think stagnation and I get along yet. The puzzles were deadly, but they were challenges, and at the time I thought I did actually sort of like challenges. But now I’m figuring out that I think I can only face them so well when they’re not so much…personal ones.”

In her peripheral vision, Doug was nodding. “When so much has happened to you,” he said, “it’s perfectly within reason to have difficulty sorting through it all. You don’t _want_ to sort through anything, sometimes, because then you have to acknowledge that it’s there…”

Was his perception because he was beginning to know her well, or was he projecting his own experiences now? Chell didn’t know, and honestly didn’t mind. She just found it comforting that he understood the complicated swirl taking up an aching space in her chest. “Yeah. I’m trying to face a few things lately that I’ve been avoiding.”

“Is one of them Wheatley, tonight?”

At least a little bit of it was his care to know about her, then. “Yes,” Chell admitted quietly, not taking her eyes down from where they had drifted upon a particular star. She’d been trying very hard, forcefully even, to avoid thinking of Wheatley, but after her already emotionally taxing afternoon, when her eyes had been tracing Doug’s mural and seen that shade of blue he’d managed to create that near-perfectly matched the core’s eye… “It would take a lot of effort to earn it on his part—a lot—but…I think I might have the capacity to forgive him now.”

She was thinking at that moment not of the power-hungry brute he had become, but of the happy-go-lucky, bumbling (if sometimes callous and selfish) disposition he’d had when they first met. Even with her natural distaste for robots he had been a lot harder to hate back then than GLaDOS had been, and had more than fulfilled the ‘personality’ aspect of his model name. Hell, there’d been times when he’d been downright endearing…

“Doug?”

He stirred. “Mm?”

“Can you tell me about them?” She finally looked away from the sky, grounding herself in her companion’s features. “The cores. I know their existence is connected to _her_ , but can you remember how they came about?”

Doug huffed out a thoughtful breath, staring briefly off at the horizon. “Well, all of them were different. Some of them were around before GLaDOS came online and, as you said you know, there were some created afterward, specifically for the purpose of controlling her.”

He rubbed the back of his neck, a gesture Chell had come to recognize meant that he was nervous, either because of his own involvement in an incident or because he felt shame for Aperture’s actions at large.

“The ones from before were a lot simpler—they were mostly scrapped efforts, way-side roadblocks on the way to creating functioning AI without the use of a human mind-map. After we gained some…insight after seeing the way GLaDOS…operated…that was when much more multi-faceted intelligences were possible, even if we still made them purposefully single-minded.”

Doug started chewing the inside of his cheek, then, and she was not sure what that indicated. She remained silent to see if he would have any more to say, and, eventually, he did.

“I almost don’t even want to say this—because it could very well be my paranoia talking—but I really think that the idea of using cores as a method to try to tame her could well have been inspired by me.” He gave a timid chuckle. “That probably sounds so egotistical, I know, but… I can’t shake the feeling. I _know_ the upper staff knew about me, about which pills I needed and why—I got them through the company insurance, after all. I swear they just hired me with the intent of studying me and how I’d react if a few pills out of every batch of my prescription were placebos.” His voice trailed down to a murmur. “If they saw me, they knew exactly how…distracting noise can be when it’s constant inside your head.”

Chell quietly sifted through all of this, weighing up his testimony and speculation. “So really,” she said after a time, attempting to sum it up, “to the company, the cores were just as much disposable tools as the test subjects were.”

“…that’s fair to say,” he whispered back.

Yes, then, Chell decided: some of the machines in Aperture were deserving of pity just as much as some of its humans were…and in Wheatley’s case, perhaps forgiveness too, given enough time and effort on his part. Not that realizing any of this now did any of the cores any good, in the grand scheme of things, but it eased her a little knowing that she would be right to let go of some of her lingering anger. She would not forget it—oh no—but neither would she allow it to eat at her so much anymore.

After asking him to share with her something that she now knew made him uncomfortable, Chell chose to repay Doug by sharing something with him as well. “This is the first time I’ve let myself look at the night sky for longer than a few seconds,” she admitted in a soft voice, staring upward once more. “And the first time I’ve allowed myself to be under it with no roofing protection since the night I met you in that field.” One of her hands reflexively gripped her knee. “…when you’ve been up in it, not able to breathe and convinced you’re going to die, it’s hard to find the sight beautiful anymore.”

Doug did not seem to be able to find anything to say to this, but he did reach out to lay his hand over hers. It was instinct when Chell relaxed her grip in response, turning her wrist to allow their palms to rest against one another. It was quite deliberate when after a while gazing silently upward together she chose to interlace her fingers with his.


	7. Bared Scars, Hiding Hearts

Doug stared down at his palm, where the address he’d inked against the skin there sat mocking him.

It was the last afternoon before the weekend, and he had finally had the courage to ask their landlord for a day off from working around the apartment complex in order to take a turn around town in search of a job. He already had somewhere in mind—having overheard someone’s complaint about not being able to find good help earlier in the week while out on a supply run with Chell—but it was turning out that knowing there may be an opportunity for him and convincing himself to take it were two completely separate beasts.

Cube, luckily, was there for him with her…particular brand of encouragement. _Come on, you’re gonna start attracting funny looks just standing here on the corner like this. I get stared at enough as is._

He rolled his eyes. Yes, because social anxiety was _such_ an easy thing to just _turn off_.

 _Doug,_ Cube said, her voice still exasperated but now a little kinder, _I’m not asking you to do anything I don’t have full confidence you can do. I mean look, you wouldn’t have even made it this far if you didn’t have it in you to_ try. _Now let’s see you walk in there—it might even end up as quick and easy as clipping a nail._

“Like you even know what that feels like,” he muttered back, but there was a smile on his features now.

Okay…he squared his shoulders and finished walking down the block. Okay.

Luck, as it turned out, was on Doug’s side that day. He’d needed a few minutes, once he’d walked into the shop, to psyche himself up enough to go forward with his offer, and as it happened that was just enough time for the employee behind the counter to start having the same trouble that he’d observed a few days prior: the young man was at that moment smacking the screen of his cash register, apologizing to his customer and saying that he was going to have to ring up their purchase longhand again.

 _There you go!_ Cube told him. _You’ve got an in!_

Swallowing his nervousness Doug approached the counter, lifting a hand for attention. “I could maybe take a look at that for you if you wanted,” he said. “I’m pretty good with electronic things.”

His offer was met with equal measures of surprise and relief. “Sure, fella,” the cashier said, moving aside a bit for him. “My boss is like to kiss us both if you can get this thing running again, it’s been holding us back for close to a year.”

“I don’t know as I’m looking for that type of reward,” Doug said with good humor.

He set about taking the machine apart while the employee, who wore no name tag, finished assisting his customer, and then the next customer after them. An hour passed in this fashion, with Doug even managing to make occasional amiable small talk with a few people. He got to meet the manager after a time, as well, when he ran into an issue that required him to go into the back and request the store’s toolbox. Initially he was intimidated—the man had a stare more calculating than the register Doug was attempting to repair—but after a minute’s inspection he passed whatever unspoken requirements the manager must have been judging him on and was freely given the set of equipment.

“Let me know how that ends up, eh?”

“Yes sir,” Doug said.

“I seriously hope that that turns out well,” the cashier told him when he’d returned to the front.

“It’s looking like it’s going to,” he replied, sitting back down on the stool they’d found for him and hunting down the last part he’d been working with.

“No, really—it’ll make our lives _so_ much easier around here.”

Doug smiled faintly, put in good spirits by the other’s youthful sense of exaggeration. He’d noticed that kind of verbosity was common around here with those in their late teens and early twenties. When was the last time he’d felt carefree enough to babble about something with a complete stranger?

 _Save your Old Man Reminiscing for later,_ Cube chided him, though she sounded amused too.

Doug kept on with his work, diligently keeping track of everything he did and everything he altered, until he felt with reasonable confidence that it was time to give the newly rewired machine a test run. “Here,” he told the cashier, “give this a go before I get the back plating screwed back on there.”

He did give it a trial run, but only when the next customer wandered through. Doug didn’t want to stick his nose further into business that wasn’t his just yet, and charitably didn’t mention the fact that he’d meant for the boy to try it before there was an outside party to potentially irritate—he was not the manager here, after all. That job belonged to the somewhat daunting man in the back room.

The numbers came out perfectly, though, for the next four customers in a row, so his concerns were rendered pleasantly moot. Doug was jubilant, however nothing could match the cashier’s excitement.

“I’m gonna go tell the boss!” he exclaimed, leaving Doug somewhat awkwardly manning his post as he scampered off to do so.

Said boss came back out with his employee after a few minutes, eying Doug with gruff approval. “Ain’t nobody’s managed to get that thing working properly in all the months we’ve been having to deal with it. Where’d you get those skills?”

He was as honest as he could be. “Where I used to be before I came here, you needed those type of skills to survive. I had to teach myself to be really good at it.”

The man raised his eyebrows. “Well we’re glad.” He held out a hand. “Pryce Heckley.”

Doug shook hands with him, making his own introduction.

“Good man.” Pryce nodded, and then his look turned appraising. “You wouldn’t happen to be in the market for a few more jobs of the same like, would you Doug?” he inquired. “Because I’ve got a computer back here that’s laggy as all hell, and I know the place two doors down from here’s been on the lookout for someone to reorganize their data filing systems.” 

\-----

When Doug arrived back home late in the evening, tired but proud of himself, the apartment was quite dark. He wasn’t sure what to make of that at first, as both he and Chell were wont to leave a few lights on for one another when either’s work kept them out until after nightfall. Was she not home yet either?

A voice that Doug wanted to grind beneath his heel suggested it was more likely she’d finally abandoned him. Growling low in his throat for it to shut up he loped down the length of the entryway, heading for the faint glow of light he could now see was emanating around the corner. That light was enough to disprove the voice’s claim, even if he hadn’t already been unshakeable in his certainty that she would not part ways with him without giving him reason in person.

Chell wasn’t going to pick up and go without telling him. It was a mark of the trust they’d built between each other that he, a man with paranoia classed as debilitating, believed in this.

The light source turned out to be Chell’s bedside lamp. She’d uncharacteristically left the door to her room open, and he could see her, backlit in amber, as she sat bent forward on the edge of her mattress. She hadn’t noticed him yet, but what concerned him was that she appeared to be tending to some sort of wound—there was bandaging at her feet, and her palm was slick with some type of salve that she was dabbing gingerly onto her leg.

Doug could not help himself; softly, he called her name. Her head snapped up, body taking on a stiff fight-or-flight posture before relaxing in recognition. “God, Doug,” she said with a small, somewhat shaky laugh, “I thought you were a ghost or something.”

He set his bag down and limped forward to stand in the doorframe. “Not a ghost,” he murmured back, but was less focused on reassuring her than on looking into her eyes. Though her posture had calmed her gray gaze still looked stormy with distress, and although he didn’t directly want to ask why he felt it would be remiss if he left her in such a state. “May I help with that?” he asked.

Chell blinked at him, then slowly sat up straight and murmured a single word back to him: “Please.”

He went to her, arranging himself into a sitting position on the floor near the bandaging. Doug could see her injury better now—a shallow but long cut on her calf. She’d had to roll her pants leg all the way up past her knee to get at it properly.

“This happened at work?” he assumed, flicking his eyes up to her face and then promptly back down again when he saw her nod. Even though he’d obtained explicit permission from her to do this it still seemed like she was holding something back from him, something she didn’t want to talk about just yet, and he didn’t want to add to whatever pressure she seemed to already be feeling by putting her on the spot in any way.

Doug picked up where she had left off, taking up some of the salve she’d been using and carefully applying it to wherever he saw needed attention—a task that he’d viewed her performing falteringly at best, but never once did she flinch from his touch. He could feel her eyes on him, but he didn’t look up at her anymore for fear of what his own stare would show now. Their situation was not indecent, but it was intimate all the same, and he was certain he would immediately flush and feel compelled to excuse himself if he met her gaze again.

The room was quiet as he worked. It was a peculiar sort of quiet, loaded but not unpleasant, still, punctuated only by the soft shuffling of the bandaging as he eventually began to bind the disinfected wound. He could feel her still looking at him, and for all the world it seemed as if reality was holding its breath. When finally his fingers had no more bandaging to wrap they tied the end of it off snugly…fell motionless still brushing her calf.

Steeling himself, Doug did look back up at her now, allowed his features to become saturated with the worry that had grown in him—to communicate with his expression the question, however much he wanted to allow Chell her privacy, that he could not allow to remain unasked: _Are you all right?_

He could tell that there was a struggle in her, but ultimately she decided to answer his honest concern with honesty in turn, admitting in a murmur, “It’s hard for me to look at my legs. The scars…”

Doug had of course seen them, his face even at that moment being level with her afflicted knee. The marks hadn’t been on his radar, though, as he’d tended the fresh wound, and he did not take his eyes away from her now to look at them, either.

“I have problems with them being exposed,” she continued, rubbing an arm with the self-depreciating air of someone caught up in the dysphoria yet simultaneously battling the internalized notion that it was a silly thing to be affected by. “They’re ugly. They’re such an ugly reminder of what I went through.”

He was liable to choke on how unfair it all was. She should never have had to deal with any of this, it just wasn’t… “I can appreciate how much of an upset they are as reminders,” he told her, his voice coming out hoarse to his own ears, “but I have to disagree with you on the matter of ugliness.” The words were coming out unplanned, unmindful of their weight. “I don’t believe any part of you can be ugly.”

And then he shocked both of them by leaning forward, eyes closed, and placing a kiss against the side of her knee.

The second it sunk in what he’d just done Doug went absolutely still. Terror did its job of freezing away all other emotion, immobilizing him with fear that he’d overstepped a boundary even though the action had been nothing but chaste.

When Chell’s hand touched his jaw, however, it wasn’t to slap him away but merely to slowly face him toward her again, look him in the eye once more. Whatever she saw there must have been alright, because then all she said was “Sit with me?”

He was still reeling from his own impulsiveness, but Doug found a scrap of courage in her apparent lack of discomfort. _I’m so grateful that doesn’t seem to have been unwelcome,_ he thought somewhat dizzily as he settled beside her on the edge of the mattress. _That could so easily have ruined everything so fast…what the hell are you doing, Rattmann?_

Chell, meanwhile, had been gathering words. “How do you do that?” she asked, and there was no reproach in her tone, just a desire to understand. “How can you make peace with something like this?”

Doug was quiet a little while, trying to think how best to explain. “Since I’ve been healing,” he began slowly, “looking at my leg has been hard for me. At where I got shot.” His eyes found a knot in the wood floor paneling, settled on it unmoving as he spoke. “It makes me think of the pain, of having to carve out the bullet myself, of having to lie on table after table being poked and prodded at and being told the limp is permanent and feeling nauseous knowing that in there, the muscles are joined all wrong and that it’s going to keep _hurting_.”

He took a deep breath, needing to find his center again. When the turmoil subsided enough he leaned down, motion by motion tucking his pants leg up so that it matched Chell’s, thus baring the scarring he’d been speaking of.

“These,” he said, laying trembling fingers over the mark, “are the leftovers of injury. But it’s helped me to try not to see mine, as I had been, as an indication of failure—rather, I got this from bravery. Bravery that until that point I didn’t even know I had.” _Bravery that I got from you,_ Doug realized, _for you._ “I think,” he went on, “that in your case, you could call your scars roots. Use that to reclaim the fact that they’re gnarled and deep—they’re your refusal to give up in Aperture…your resolve to continue surviving now.”

After this proclamation Chell was silent for so long that he had to look across at her to gauge her reaction. Emotion was writ clear upon her face, and it was evident that she was having to work hard at keeping it reined in. “A broken box,” she whispered finally, echoing a past comment he’d told her of as she reached out with one hand to brush her knuckles across his brow. “GLaDOS couldn’t have been more wrong about you.”

Having an insult that had plagued him for so long turned around, said with disbelief, like the idea was _laughable_ , mended something inside him even as it broke his composure. “I can’t think how I deserve to know you,” he said, the words cracked.

“I don’t believe in the concept of something happening only if you ‘deserve’ it,” she replied, “and even if I did, you’d have me anyway.”

Chell moved to hug him, making it a fierce one when he responded positively to the action. So fierce, in fact, that the both of them ended up with their torsos down on the mattress, faces buried in each other’s shoulders. Such extended contact was new, but it felt _right_.

“…I’d like it if you didn’t go back to the couch tonight.” She spoke into his shirt, the fingers of one of her hands half-threaded into the hair at his neck. “If you stayed here.”

 _Stayed here with you._ In spite of his shy nature, that felt right too. “I’ll stay,” he breathed.

Chell let out a breath as well, then hugged him tighter for just a moment before ending the embrace in order to get up and shut the door. Doug used the time to better situate himself. By the time she was returning to the bedside, he’d managed to tug his pants leg back into its proper place and find a comfortably stretched-out position with his upper back leant against the headboard. Then she was clicking off the lamp, leaving them darkness save for what little light from the quarter-moon filtered into the room through the window glass.

At that point Doug did feel a degree of uncertainty—he’d never slept in anything larger than a twin-sized bed, and certainly never alongside anyone—but Chell, confident, caring, and knowledgeable of boundary, never gave him much time to worry. She climbed over to his good side and settled down, close but not crowding, on her side with one palm reached out to lie across his upper arm.

“Goodnight,” she told him softly.

Doug swallowed as he looked down at her profile, and sent a general thought out into the universe that it could damn him for a liar if he said this wasn’t the most peaceful he’d felt since he could remember. “Goodnight,” he whispered back.

\-----

Despite the calm he’d felt before drifting off, his dreams were vaguely troubled. There wasn’t anything specific he could remember from them as he slowly broke back through to wakefulness; he had only the sensation that something had been chasing him, and that he’d had to do his best to hide. The fear was receding now, though, chased away in turn by a feeling of safety—he could swear there had been a gentle touch to his shoulder near the end, the protective and grounding motion of fingers moving through his hair…

With a blink, however, he discovered that his impressions had in fact been quite real: Chell had grown closer to him in the night, and even at that moment had one hand woven through the locks he’d been allowing to grow out.

She stilled the motions as soon as she saw he was awake, but gazed up at him without embarrassment or regret. “You were having a bad dream.”

Doug nodded. He wanted to say something, felt like he should, but the breath was caught in his chest, like there was a spell here that would break if he stammered or said the wrong thing. Which was well, he found out, because after a not-unpleasant stretch of silence she confessed something to him.

“I have nightmares too. And when I wake up alone, all I want is…” Chell trailed off briefly. “I didn’t know if it would be the same kind of comfort to you, but I wanted to help if I could.”

“You did,” he murmured back, but was too overwhelmed to say much else. “…did you want to talk about your nightmares, at all?”

Chell considered it a while, gazing at his collar. “I don’t think I can express them that way,” she decided, eventually.

Doug made a soft sound of understanding. He was all too familiar with the ways one’s mind could cause hurts too vague or potent to put words to.

“Maybe, though…” Chell shifted, looked back up at him again. “Would—can you teach me? How to paint, I mean?”

The promise fell from his lips as naturally as his heart kept its beat. “Of course.”

She smiled with gratitude. “It really does seem like it can help so much. It’s part of what made you strong, kept you alive for all that time…”

He almost told her that there was more truth in her words than she knew, but at the end her voice became introspective, and he suspected that Chell was as aware as he was of an unsettling fact: that without his art, it was indeed possible that he may not have had the fortune of being able to be with with her here and now. But that wasn’t something either of them needed to (or could afford to) focus on.

“You’re already strong,” he said instead. “But certainly, anything I can do to help you, I will.”

“You really think I’m strong?”

She appeared mildly surprised by that fact, and he was quick to explain himself. “Yes. There aren’t many who would have been able to do the things that you’ve done, to take the abuse that you suffered. I was forced to watch scores of people try—some of them made an admirable go at it, but none so determinedly as you.”

Doug was not able to help his passionate certainties showing through in his tone, and when he noticed it he fell silent briefly to get a better handle on the feelings. This was the reason that although he had returned to painting frequently, he had not once made a likeness of Chell since taking back up the brush—to dwell on her meant to dwell on his regard for her, and he was not so skilled as to be able to keep it from showing through in his murals. It already made him uncomfortable that she’d seen so much of the work he’d done in Aperture. He didn’t regret his portraits of her but they were not an accurate reflection of what he felt toward her now, after having gotten the chance to truly know her.

“And that’s what I learned from just watching you from afar,” he said when he felt ready to continue. “It…wouldn’t be unfair to say that you inspired some hero-worship in me, back then. But since getting to meet you, to interact with you, know you,” _–and I treat that as a gift every day–_ “I admire you maybe even more…but in a better way, one that’s respectful of you not as more of a concept, but as the woman you are: weary, and yet still kind, beaten down but _not broken_.”

He usually was not able to maintain a consistent eye contact with her, and only became aware that he had been managing to do so when Chell was the first to look away. For a second Doug was certain that she shivered. But then she was shifting and it became unclear to him whether it had been a movement on its own or was simply a prelude to the larger one, whose purpose, he found out, was to curl a bit closer to him.

“If it wouldn’t likely hurt both of our legs I’d be hugging you really hard again,” she mumbled into his shirt, “but we are both still injured, so just know that I would if I could.”

Doug chuckled, feeling lightheaded from his admissions and from the fact that they were together in the manner they were and nothing about it felt wrong—to either of them. He laid an arm around her shoulders and assured her that just this was more than fine.


	8. Boxes, and Other Beautiful Things

The weather was lumbering toward something like fall, so every time Chell woke to sunlight streaming through the window she was very glad. The cooling temperatures were nice after the sometimes oppressive heat of the midsummer, but clouds meant rain, and rain—however necessary it was to sustain their lives—meant work was more difficult for her and her construction crew. The sun, by contrast, could never be unwelcome in her mind.

Not that she had work today anyway. She reveled in that, stretching and rolling over with a wide smile. It was a weekend and that meant that she had free choice in exactly when she wished to rise from bed, whether that would be soon or as far as hours away. Chell rather favored the latter. For one she was quite comfortable, and furthermore had long ago decided to treat every restful moment as a personal victory over the place she had come from before.

Her motions prompted movement beside her. There was some shifting followed by a mumble, and she opened one eye just a fraction to check if Doug was waking. His expression, though, still showed the smoothness of deep and untroubled slumber, and for that she was as glad as for the sunlight. A day could usually be relied upon to be a good one if neither of them came into it on the heels of a nightmare.

It was the end of the third week since they had first begun sharing the room that had formerly been Chell’s alone. That word, alone, had been the main thing of the matter in the end. The night Doug had tended her leg wound had been a kind of decision point. Having him stay so close by her as they’d both drifted off had been more of a comfort than she’d even imagined it would be—which honestly had come as somewhat of a shock, because even though it had been her hope it had been a fledgling one, the desire-borderline-need to be close to someone in that manner one she’d only half-dared to acknowledge. Having it confirmed, however, made her thought process come morning surprisingly clear: despite the uncharted territory they were very much in, Chell found herself wanting to stay and map it out. And that meant doing it again.

Asking Doug about it had been her only point of anxiety. He was naturally very skittish and she didn’t want to push this type of interaction too far if it wasn’t something he was ready for or even wanted. His willingness to be with her through the night, though, plus the air of ease about him even after they’d woken, gave her the confidence to bring it up with him—even if she didn’t directly look at him when she voiced the question, her head still tucked against his chest such that he could not see her face.

His arm had tensed briefly where it still lay over her shoulders, but she thought that’d been from surprise more than anything because when he found his words, there was no hesitation in them. “I’d like that. Any night you want me to be here, I will.”

So far there hadn’t been a night when she hadn’t.

Chell was shaken from her reverie by another soft set of noises from her roommate. Promptly she refocused her gaze on him, not wanting to miss the moment of him waking up. It was a secret enjoyment of hers to catch the look in his eyes when he opened them, the unfocused warmth toward her that would glow in their mismatched colors before it was blinked back behind his wakeful propriety.

_Which is just so_ him _to do,_ Chell thought with fondness. She knew that form of reservation had its roots in his anxious tendencies; even with full invitation into a situation he was still doing his damnedest to make sure she never had any reason to be uncomfortable around him, and she appreciated his consistent valuing of her feelings.

Never mind for now that she didn’t mind such sleepy, semi-stolen looks…she hadn’t worked out a non-embarrassing way of communicating that.

“Good morning,” she conveyed instead.

Doug garbled out a still-drowsy reply. He fared a bit better at speaking after those two blinks that Chell had grown so accustomed to. “Ah, that light is nice…”

“I was thinking we could go out in it later,” she suggested, rolling onto her stomach and crossing her arms beneath her to prop herself up a bit. “Take a walk around the town, maybe? Not really for any reason, just to get out under the sky for a while.”

“Sounds great to me—and my doctor wanted me to up my stamina some more anyway, so it’ll be good to see how far I can get. Do you want to come?” The question was directed at Cube, who sat just beyond the bedside table. “…She says no,” he eventually said back to Chell, turning back over to face her again. “She claims she’s still just unused to so much sun, but—” he leaned up and in, putting his lips close to one of her ears and stage-whispering “—I think it’s just because she’s lazy.”

His conspiratorial tone, which completely belied the fact that Cube would obviously still be able to ‘hear’ him, made Chell pull back just a tad to check if he was being serious, and she burst into a fit of giggles at the blasé grin she found upon his face. “Just the two of us, then,” she confirmed through her laughter.

Before even thinking about leaving the apartment however they took their time moving slowly about their morning. Doug was the first to rise from bed, yawning and making a comment about needing his A.M. coffee, and Chell rolled over and spread-eagled into his side’s lingering body heat before it was gone. “Don’t you tell him I do this,” she directed at Cube as she gave a content yawn too.

There were times she wished she could communicate with the Aperture relic as Doug did—not because she desired to have hallucinations, but because the cube was a part of him, and she was finding herself more and more wanting to understand as much of him as she possibly could. This particular facet of him would always be beyond her, though; she knew that she’d never truly know what that part of his life was like, even though Doug thoughtfully kept her in the loop of much of Cube’s often sass-filled commentary.

The former testing equipment was very colorful sometimes, for being made of mostly gray material.

“I should go out and find my own companion cube soon,” she called out, thinking aloud with enough volume so Doug would be able to hear from the other room. “Not today—I don’t want to make you try to go so far. But sometime in the near future.”

“That’d be a good outing,” he agreed, his voice taking on a joking tone as he added, “I’ll confess I’ve been wondering what sort of personality it’s got.”

Chell snorted with amusement; it didn’t surprise her that he’d be flippant about assuming he’d start hearing it talking to him too. She rolled out of bed, finally going to join him in the living area. “If it does have one, I don’t know whether I’d prefer it if it did or didn’t get along with Cube—you’ll either never hear the end of their arguing, or they’ll be able to gang up on us better than she does already by herself.”

Doug’s eyes widened as he lowered his cup from his lips and swallowed. “God, I didn’t even consider that,” he said.

When her next comment occurred to her Chell made sure she was in the kitchen by the time she said it, facing away from him as she poured her own drink. “I mean, I can’t imagine how uppity she already must be about our recent sleeping arrangements.”

“…You know, she’s…not actually said much about it.” Doug tried for casual as much as Chell had, but didn’t succeed quite as well, any offhandedness he may have been reaching for offset by the lightest of stumbles. Even so, there was no deception in his tone. “I thought she’d—well, I assumed she’d have more to say, but she only mentioned the one thing, and hasn’t brought it up since.”

He didn’t elaborate on what that one thing was, and Chell didn’t want to pressure him and ask. She simply wandered back out to the living area instead, taking a seat beside him on the sofa. “Huh. Small favors, I guess?”

She offered up her mug for a kind of toast; Doug shrugged in agreement and clinked the rim of his cup to hers.

\-----

Doug’s stamina, from Chell’s point of view, had recovered remarkably from the time he’d first stumbled out of the wheat field and entered her life. He still walked with a limp and likely always would, but he was able to keep pace with her quite capably and now wielded Grimshaw as if he’d been utilizing the cane for years instead of just months.

“How much longer do you think you’d be good to go for?” she asked him as they came to a brief halt at a street corner.

Doug, who had been smiling at a stray dog a few buildings down, pulled his gaze back to her where she stood at his right side. “I’m not sure—a little while longer, though, at least. I’m feeling really good today.”

He looked it, too: his skin had gradually been tanning as it had been re-exposed to sunlight, and since having a wider, not to mention stable, variety of food and drink his gauntness had fled him. His eyes were bright, no longer troubled by a sunken look or bags. Chell grinned and hooked an arm with his. “Then on we go.”

Sometime later, Doug gave a sudden halt and patted Chell’s arm so that she would do the same. “I worked for them earlier this week,” he told her, quietly but very much enthusiastic as he used Grimshaw to gesture discreetly at a couple meandering a ways up the walkway across the street. “They were really sweet…called me a godsend, and said they’d spread talk of me around.”

“That’s great!” She was thrilled to see him so happy about establishing himself. “You’re gonna need business cards, soon.”

“Ah, no—I’m rubbish at designing things like that.”

“Says the _painter_.”

“T-that’s different!” he protested self-consciously, but even as he went on to try to explain it was clear he knew he had a weak argument. “The murals just happen, I wouldn’t know where to begin planning out something that looked professional.”

“So that’s _not_ what we’re gonna do with tonight’s art session?” she teased, all wide-eyed faux innocence.

Doug laughed, and one would have had to have been unobservant indeed not to pick up on the fondness in the sound. “Worrying about what your companion cube might go on about, indeed—just listen to _you_!”

“You know I love getting a bit of mischief in.” Chell took up his arm again, readying them to head off once more. “Come on, let’s go see how close we can get to that bird before it flies off. The other day I managed to give one some crumbs while I was on my way home, and I want to see if word’s got around with the flock that we’re friendly.”

\-----

Chell never got on Doug’s case about forgetting to eat when doing artwork anymore, because finally, after trying it out for herself, she knew what being in a “zone” was like.

The first time she’d experienced it had been during his third lesson. His first had been by Chell’s request strictly observational, a two-hour stint of taking in his technique, during which she had been able to take in a good deal on color theory and which brushes produced which effect. The following session was much the same, but had been punctuated both by her trying a few pictures herself and one memorable stretch of minutes that Doug had slipped into one of his self-titled grooves. Chell privately thought, after, that she’d almost learned more from witnessing that than she had during the points he’d been more ‘actively’ sharing. And then she’d experienced it for herself, the next weekend, and knew that she had been right.

There was an air of indescribability to it: even in her own mind Chell couldn’t quite articulate the feeling she got when her hand began to move almost on its own, as if taken over by the brush. Normally she wouldn’t stand feeling out of control in any way, but far from constricted here she actually felt somewhat freed, reveling in the fact that she was producing something—not necessarily anything of artistic significance (she had only just begun to learn, after all), but still something to stand back and say of which, “I did that”.

Doug had been proud of her, too. “Very good,” he’d murmured, looking the wall over with her when she’d ultimately stepped away from the mural. Then he’d looked away, at her, and repeated the phrase, and she felt something in her chest glow warm.

That first “zone” had been two weeks ago, now, and she’d only gotten more practiced since then. No longer were her drawings formless, shapeless; those had been important in their own way, reflecting her sometimes-chaotic inner state, but Chell could now express herself in a far more sophisticated range. Some of her paintings indeed began to rival Doug’s in complexity, and he’d actually requested of some of them that she not paint over them with her next projects (as was their habit when the wall became too crowded) because he thought they merited preservation.

“As long as you’re okay with leaving them, of course,” he’d said. “You know I understand that just because something needs out doesn’t necessarily mean you want to keep staring at it…”

Chell had honestly just been moved that he thought so much of them, and it took her no time to promise to leave those few alone.

They were painting at the same time, today. Normally she and Doug would tend to avoid working concurrently, due to a particular instance in which they’d both forgotten the very important event of eating dinner until near midnight, but because neither of them could watch the other paint without feeling the pull to themselves they’d struck out a tentative plan—one of them would swipe a paint mark on the wall, and when the evening sunlight coming through the window dipped over or past that line, Cube would badger Doug until both of them halted and took a break.

She could tell it must be getting toward time, because though she’d not looked up from her project to check the twilight line, for the past ten minutes she’d heard Doug muttering various (increasingly agitated) comments from somewhere off to her left: “I know, I know…yes, you can shut it, nearly there…god, I _know_ , I just want to _finish_ …”

Finally, with a frustrated growl, Doug threw his hands in the air and dropped his brush with a clatter.

“Okay, she’s officially gone from helpful to downright sarcastic,” he announced to Chell. “So I’m stopping before she starts singeing the couch from all the ‘burns’ she keeps slinging at us.”

“Doug,” Chell groaned, pulling her best ‘oh come on’ face as she paused her work to look up at him, “that is the _worst_ pun.”

“After the shit she’s been giving the both of us for the past half hour? I’m entitled to a few bouts of spectacularly bad wordplay, I think.” He sat down on the floor, groaning himself as he leaned back in a back-popping stretch. “Ahh, that’s nice…she did have a point, I was standing in one place for a really long time there at the end…”

“That can’t be good for your leg,” she agreed.

Doug shrugged. “Eh. It’s already terrible tonight anyway, s’not a lot I could do to make it worse.”

He gestured vaguely at the wall, and Chell followed the implied line to what he’d spent the evening working on. There were a cluster of abstract, stick-figure Dougs grouped together, each in different contorted positions as they held onto one leg that was quite obviously causing them severe pain. She winced while following the lines of the last one he’d been giving attention to—the figure was curled on the ground, its leg mangled so badly that it’d been portrayed as if it had seven major joints instead of two.

Doug was staring at the ceiling. “I was going for a ‘crumpled origami’ effect,” he said quietly.

Chell nodded with an affected expression; he’d certainly achieved it. After some thought and a pregnant pause, she asked, “Did you want me to see if I can do anything about it?”

An equally lengthy silence passed before he rolled his head around so he could look at her. “What do you mean?”

“Well, you helped me with my leg that one time.” Decidedly, she put her paintbrush down and scooted over to him. “Let me have a go at doing the same.”

“…if you want to. I guess?”

He sounded like he wasn’t sure what she had in mind. Chell made it clear to him by holding her hands up so he could see them, then lowering them slowly down onto his thigh and, when she didn’t hear any objection, giving a few choice _presses_. Doug gave an intake of breath that was almost a hiss—but, notably, still didn’t protest, so she continued the ministrations (taking care even through his pants to avoid touching his scar tissue) until she could feel the taut muscle begin to loosen.

“…that’s good,” he told her after several silent minutes. His voice was slightly hoarse. “That…it feels better now.”

Chell took that as a cue to move back again, lest she overstay her welcome in his personal space. His words had sounded sincere—an actual thank-you, not just something to say to get her away from him—but they also came along with an expression that she didn’t quite know what to make of. It wasn’t negative, not at all, but it had a kind of import she was unaccustomed to, and if she’d have been aware of herself instead of hyper-focused on his apparent hyper-focus of her, she’d have noticed her face beginning to heat the slightest bit.

“You’ve got some paint,” he whispered, “on your cheek…just there.”

Doug raised his hand, wiping at the smudge with the pad of his thumb, and Chell felt it then—this was one of those weightless moments. She’d felt them before, with him, and they always made her…

“Yeah,” she murmured back, “I did.”

They always made her want to do two stupid things. Metaphorically run, or…that other thing.

Committing to metaphorically running again—for now—Chell grinned mischievously, and took her own paint smeared fingers to Doug’s jaw in a quick swipe with the purpose of _putting_ color on his cheek. “And now you do too.”

Doug scrambled back, indignant laughter tumbling from his throat as he re-focused on her gaze with an expression that could have landed him the poster-child position for the phrase “you did _not_ just do that”. She responded with an unapologetic “I had to” kind of shrug, and oh, was that the start of it: with a devious grin of his own he got her back quickly, and got her back _good_ , dipping his hand into the nearest can of paint and flinging what stuck to his hand at her in a wide arc. The splatter took Chell admittedly by surprise—it took her a freeze-frame few seconds to recover, her mouth a fixed ‘o’ of surprise that set Doug to full-throated mirth. That cut off, however, with a fair bit of spluttering when she used his distraction against him with his own tactic.

The resultant paint fight lasted a good five minutes. By the end Chell and Doug were both covered from head to foot in every single color they had and looked, according to Doug according to Cube, like a couple of walking Jackson Pollock paintings. Not that they were doing much walking—there’d been some ducking and lunging in the midst of the good-natured hostilities, but they both had eventually settled lying down on the floor, unable to stand for laughing. Their heads were nearby each other, but neither could look at the other without danger of bursting into another fit of chuckling, so they mostly stared at the ceiling while they attempted to get their breath back.

“That,” Doug panted, “is the most fun I’ve had since…damn, I can’t even remember.”

Chell shared the sentiment. “Who are we calling the winner, by the way?”

There was a pause, and then he snorted. “Cube says whoever we pay to get the stains out of our laundry,” he said. Conspiratorially though, he inched himself closer to Chell so he could tell her, “Little does she know that this stuff’s water soluble.”

She couldn’t help it—Chell had to grin at him and that made her laugh again, and then that set _him_ laughing again, to which Doug later told her that Cube (not without affection) swore them both off as irreparably idiotic.


	9. Just So You Know

“Say, why d’you carry that thing with you all the time?”

Doug looked up from the Gordian knot of wires he was wrestling with. “Sorry?”

“That there.” A slippered foot gestured towards Doug’s satchel. “Your…cube.”

He slowly put his tools down, thinking hard about how to answer that question. Colette wasn’t having a go at him—he could hear from her tone that curiosity motivated her inquiry and nothing more—but he wasn’t sure it was a conversation he wanted to get into with a complete stranger, even if the elderly woman had been nothing but cordial and had even provided him with tea while he worked on her radio.

Doug had been thinking, though, over quite a few nights, that it could be time to begin extending his trust beyond just Chell. They’d been living in this community, been _part_ of this community, for honestly quite a bit of time now. That counted for something, right? People weren’t going to…well, it wasn’t _likely_ that they would run him off if he were open about a few things… Chell hadn’t, after all.

“You know how people sometimes need comfort objects?” he began. “It’s…sort of like that.”

She nodded, with much more understanding than he’d expected. “Mm, a coping mechanism. Well no worrying, Mr. Rattmann, I’m definitely not one to question anybody’s needs. We’ve all experienced so much by now that no one’s crutches will seem strange to this pair of eyes.”

Colette tapped her spectacles for emphasis and laughed a little as she settled back further into her armchair. Doug couldn’t help but smile in response, and not just because it had been ages since anybody had referred to him as “Mr. Rattmann”.

“That might not be true,” he said, questioning himself only a little before taking an impulsive leap of faith. “My cube, when I talk to her, she talks back to me.”

She scoffed a little, taking one hand off its armrest to briefly wave it, as if shooing off such a notion as being odd in any way. “My sister’s husband had a similar condition—made chit-chat with some of the taxidermy in the old house, and we never bothered overmuch about it. People get uppity about all sorts of the wrong things, you ask me.”

Doug blinked, equal parts bemused and pleased. Always looking for underhandedness and passive-aggression had bred in him a gift for reading tone, and in Colette’s he found truth: she honestly didn’t believe it to be a big deal that he carried around and had conversations with an inanimate object.

_Hey, watch who you’re calling inanimate._

_You know what I mean,_ he shot back, suppressing an eye-roll at Cube’s grumbling. To Colette he said, “I’m definitely inclined to agree.” And, feeling compelled, he added quietly, “Thank you, though.”

She smiled at him. “Would you like a refill on your tea?”

“Oh—yes, please.”

When he left the small house an hour and a serving of brunch later, Doug was feeling in high spirits. He could tell from the start when a day was going to be a Good one or a Bad one, and this particular afternoon was treading firmly in positive territory even (and maybe especially) because of the risk he’d taken.

_Well it is about time you introduced me to some of these people,_ Cube agreed primly. _I’m only with you twenty-four seven, after all._

“You know perfectly well why you’re hard for me to talk about,” he whispered as he adjusted his satchel strap. “People don’t tend to take that kind of earthshattering news without some kind of mixture of leeriness and pity.”

_People before didn’t,_ she agreed, _but wouldn’t you say the landscape’s a bit different now? You were right back there, you know. These aren’t the people you grew up around who talked behind your back, and it’s_ certainly _not Aperture._

“Don’t…don’t say that name.”

_Sorry. But you can see my point, right?_

“I…yeah.”

The impulse to run had been a thing with which he’d become familiar in the first month or two of his and Chell’s staying in town, but he hadn’t felt its cold touch for almost a season now. Cold he did feel, obviously, with winter beginning to draw near for true, but the prospect of spending the long dark holed up in this community wasn’t…wasn’t an uncomfortable one. He liked it here, plain and simple. Anywhere that wasn’t curled up alone under a piece of cardboard (or less) was a prominent step up from his previous living conditions, yes, but something about this location in particular just felt—nice.

_And here you thought you’d never feel settled anywhere ever again._ Cube’s voice was fond. _I’m proud of you._

Then she added, _Even if I still can’t stand all of this ‘sunlight’, as you call it,_ and Doug had to laugh aloud.

“All right,” he said. “Since I sort of already had lunch, I guess it’s back to Pryce’s place.”

\-----

“You want me to do what?”

Seated in the back office of Heckley’s, Doug could only stare across the desk with his mouth embarrassingly agape. Pryce was looking back at him, eyes serious.

“Just remember, Doug, this is a request, not an order. I’d just really like you along—I think it’d be good for both sides.”

He couldn’t keep sitting. Despite the small size of the room he had to get up, had to pace in what little square footage was available to him. Why had he had to have thought this was going to be a good morning? He’d called this on himself, the universe had heard him and structured this specifically to counteract his optimistic mood. Why couldn’t he have kept his damn mind quiet about feeling happy? For being content with how things were?

Doug’s hands swept compulsively through his hair, and finally he turned his gaze back to his friend. “It’s just…two whole weeks?”

Pryce was patience incarnate. “Almost two thirds of that is the travel time. You’ve seen what vehicles there are available in this town.”

_Precisely none, he means,_ Cube put in, and Doug gave her a vehement mental shush. “I understand, intellectually,” he said weakly. “Really, I do. This is just so sudden a proposition, I…”

“Hey, now, no need to decide right on the off.” Pryce’s normally blunt tones were accommodating. “You’ve got about a week to figure if you’re going to come along. I just realized this morning that I’ve been taking it for granted you’d be a number of my party, here when you haven’t even been here at this time of the year and don’t know a lick about our pre-winter trek. That was no good of me. S’why I called you back here, to make it fair and fill you in. But,” he added, “I still really hope you’ll make the rounds with us. You’re an impressive man, even if I’ve seen rabbits who’re less like to bolt at the sound of a wrench hitting the floor.”

Doug took a long breath and sat back in his chair. Bizarrely, the semi-backhanded compliment had given him a sense of slight comfort. Pryce was a gruff man, but a good one too, and Doug couldn’t deny that having a vote of confidence, no matter how it was worded, was nice. It reminded him of how he’d felt around Colette, before, when she’d accepted him at face value. The rational part of him was able to speak up again then, telling him that this was much the same sort of situation—being asked along on this type of trip was an expression of trust and of esteem for the skills he’d been sharing.

_I should be pleased,_ he realized. A numb stab of hatred thumped in his chest for how difficult being on the schizophrenic spectrum made it for him to react to situations in societally-expected ways. _What I wouldn’t give to just…_

But no. He’d crossed and set fire to that bridge, and had no right to complain about its embers catching in the wind and scalding him. He would _give_ nothing more in the direction of his mental illness, which had only taken and wounded and tortured. No, he stood in a position to give to this community, this place and people who had shown only kindness and had expected only like kindness in return.

He met Pryce’s gaze once more over the table. “Tell me about it, this place you go.”

\-----

_She’s not going to like it._

“Be quiet.”

You _barely even like it._

“I told you to be quiet.”

_It’s reckless and out of character, and frankly I don’t think you’ve done anything so stupid since—_

“Cube.” Doug ground to a full stop in the middle of the hallway, a fist balled at his side. “Shut. _Up._ ”

He could practically feelthe blink of surprise and offense behind his back, and henceforth no further commentary ensued.

Doug was in fact quite confident in his decision, and felt justified in cutting off her rather scathing review of his afternoon’s discussion. Love her he did, need her he always would, but that didn’t mean he needed to subject himself to a stream of criticism when the conversation he really needed to be having at the moment was with somebody else.

“Chell?” he called as he let himself into the apartment. “You home?”

“Yeah!” came her answering shout. “Wrestling with dinner in the kitchen!”

The smell of it washed over him, and his mouth watered. “Let me just put Cube in the bedroom and I’ll be right out to help!”

The companion cube’s heart patterns gained a particular aura when she was sulking, and he sensed that off her in spades as he set her down by the bedside. Still, Doug had no time or inclination to apologize to her just yet. Calling him stupid had been a low blow, even if the remark had been motivated by emotion and lacked forethought.

“What do you have in the works?” he asked Chell as he entered the kitchen, setting Grimshaw against the wall so he could roll up his sleeves.

“I,” she responded proudly, “managed to get us a hold of some cheese, so we will be having some _excellent_ roast potatoes if I can get this oven to keep a consistent temperature.”

Doug chuckled; the appliance had never wanted to work properly, and he suspected it would continue its shoddy operations no matter how much Chell liked to cheerfully threaten it. “I’ll make sure the outside ones don’t burn, shall I?”

While they were cooking the inside of his head was taken up by worried rehearsal. He’d always been bad at explaining himself, and despite not knowing if the words he was planning to say to start things off were the appropriate framework, he ran them over again and again to make sure he was going to hit every point he’d come up with that he wanted to address. Maybe it was overcompensation, but what was that when the alternative was feeling unprepared?

It was when he’d finally swallowed the last of his dinner—Chell had been right, the cheese really made the whole dish—that Doug decided it was the appropriate time to speak. Setting his fork down, he said, “I volunteered for something today.”

Chell made a small, slow nodding motion. “I thought it looked like you had something on your mind.”

It hadn’t been an accusation, but he still gave a sheepish smile. “Took me a bit to get up the courage to talk about it,” he admitted.

“It’s nothing dangerous, is it?”

“Pryce gave me a litany of assurances that it’s not.” Doug stood, taking his and Chell’s dishes and returning them to the kitchen. Adrenaline from his nerves set his heart thumping and he cursed himself for stalling. “Have you heard any mention in town of the pre-winter expedition?”

She had half-turned in her seat, watching him as he limped back into the room. “I can’t say that I have…” She then stood, gently interrupting him before he could sit back down at the dining table. “Why don’t you tell me about it somewhere better for your leg than that wooden chair? I can see your muscle shaking.”

She wasn’t wrong. Doug agreed to relocate to the bedroom, and when they were sat together on the edge of the mattress he clasped his hands in his lap and re-found his words. “Every year before the first snows, Pryce and a half dozen others journey to one of the neighboring towns on a mutually beneficial supply run. The people here travel first, spend a few days in the other community trading goods and services, and then return with what they’ve gathered as well as with travelers of that town’s own.”

“And you’ve agreed to go.”

The comment was neutral—not condemning but also not particularly enthusiastic. Doug understood that easily, knowing how hard it would be for him to suddenly hear that Chell had decided to leave for any length of time, even if she fully intended on returning. “Everyone here has been wonderful to us,” he said. “And my skills are helpful, so I want to keep helping them.”

“What if this other town decides that you’re so helpful that they want to keep you?”

Chell was looking at him fully, and there was no lightness in her tone. Doug was likewise serious in his answer. “They wouldn’t be able to if you didn’t want them to. You’d come and get me in a second if I was overdue.” He searched her face, suddenly cripplingly afraid his certainty of that was misplaced. “Wouldn’t you?”

The tension he felt eased when she smiled. “You’re not wrong.”

There were times, Doug thought, that he was convinced that he had to be slipping into dreams while he was awake, because it could not be possible that anyone could look at him with the fondness that Chell would in quiet moments like these.

“How long are you going to be gone for?” she asked. “You said that people spend at least a few days around in the other community, and the nearest settlement has to be four or five days away…it sounds like it’s a multiple week trip.”

“We’ll be traveling for two weeks, yes,” he confirmed, nodding his head and not quite succeeding in keeping nervousness out of the gesture. Here was the time to bring up where his greatest concern lay—what tied his stomach in knots more than anything else about the idea of this venture. “And Chell, I…wanted to make sure of something. To—to _ask_ something.”

“What is it?”

She looked legitimately clueless as to what it could be, and Doug _really_ wished there was a way to make sure he wasn’t being stupid about this without having to actually put words to what was worrying him. “I… Am I welcome back here after I come back?”

Chell blinked rapidly, drawing back a few inches. “Why on earth wouldn’t I want you back here?”

Doug couldn’t look at her. “Because, I… I really like this town, and this apartment, but what I like most about them is that you’re here living in them too. They wouldn’t be the same without you, to me. Anywhere that’s not—anywhere aboveground is nice, but I can’t see myself looking forward to coming home every day as much if part of it wasn’t picturing you being there. I feel safe sleeping next to you, and like that your face is often the first thing I get to see when I wake up. And I don’t want that to stop. I want to be with you for as far into the future as I can dare or hope to imagine.” His voice trembled. “And I think that means that I love you.”

The realization had hit him hard but quietly, because it wasn’t so much a blindsiding as it was an abrupt coalescing of, frankly, months of smaller, unacknowledged bursts of clarity. And one bigger one…really, he’d begun to appreciate just how much his heart had wandered that day they’d been painting, and they had caught each other’s gaze after she’d cared for his leg.

He wiped at his eyes and laughed, though he did not know what for or at. Himself, he supposed. “It was only the prospect of being away from you that made me understand, or I promise I’d have said something sooner. I swore when we met never to lie to you, after all, and carrying something like this inside without saying anything would have constituted the biggest lie I could ever tell.”

Doug then laced his fingers together in an attempt to stop his hands from shaking. “So I wanted you to know that before I go, for both our sakes, and so you can tell me how that changes things.” His words he could not control as well as his hands, and a hitch appeared in them. “I can…clear out pretty fast if that’s what you’ll want, I don’t have very many things…”

The mattress creaked. Chell had moved off of it, and come to stand in front of him. Crouching so that their faces were level she slowly reached out and laid her hands over his.

“Doug,” she whispered. “The only thing that changes…the _only_ thing, is that now I’ll look forward to you coming back even more than I would have before.”

He blinked. “…you don’t want me to leave?”

She shook her head. “No. I don’t really want to you go to this other place, either, but it is for a good cause and is above all your decision, too. So,” she reiterated, “I will wait for you to come back, and be more than happy to see you when you do.”

Chell lifted one of his hands, brushing her lips against his knuckles, and Doug had hardly ever felt so foolhardy.

“You’re not mad at me for being prepared to hear the worst?” he mumbled.

He once again received a gentle negative. “You know that I know you can’t help what your mind tries to tell you.” She reached up to stroke his temple. “And that whatever it is isn’t a judgment against me, but an indicator of what you successfully fight through every day.”

Doug couldn’t breathe very well through the rock in his throat, but he managed to smile at her. Leaning forward he touched their foreheads together, whispering, “You really are my favorite person in the world.”

Chell pressed into the contact. “Let’s get ready for bed,” she suggested softly, “so that I can put my arms around mine.”

Half an hour later, wrapped in darkness, their best blanket, and Chell’s embrace, Doug finally started allowing himself to really feel it—the happiness that had been beating about in his chest like the fluttering wings of a freed bird. He loved her. He loved her, and, even more wonderful, _that was okay._


	10. To Have and To Hold (Back)

Wind was still an oddity. Chell had spent so long underground, used to nothing but stale air, dead air, that breezes—with their suddenness, their way of kicking up noise in their path—still set her teeth on edge. At work it was okay: she could see all around her from a rooftop, and know that nothing was sneaking up on her. Ground level, though, was another matter entirely. Particularly beyond the town line.

Since arriving in the settlement Chell had had very little occasion to leave it; she’d put down deep roots, but not wide. Everything they had needed to begin their lives anew was procurable without setting foot beyond the town’s border, and so aside from the occasional turn about a nearby field with Doug, there had been no siren call tempting her into the unknown. Now, however, that she did not have to consider Doug’s stamina or his wariness, she’d decided it was time to put to bed something that had been in the back of her mind for a very long time. This blasted _wind_ was just making things more difficult than they had to be.

Scowling at herself, for she knew as she did it that it was a nervous gesture, Chell shoved her hands deeper into the pockets of her hooded jacket. The blight of the Combine had left few trees in the area but tussocks of grass could be found all around, their stalks tough and tall and defiant, and unfortunately for her very good at producing a litany of reedy whispers every time air so much as shifted. On each occasion she passed a cluster of them she was left with the distinct and uncomfortable feeling that a conversation was taking place behind her back. It was almost enough to make her question her resolve in coming back out this way—but only almost.

Chell wasn’t one to give up on a goal once it had taken hold, especially a notion as long-held as this one. In spite of the environmental dissuasion, in spite of every relic of trauma inside of her fearfully trying to force her stride back toward home, she was going to get this done.

“You hear that?” she told the empty sky, the beating of her heart, the world. “I came all the way out here and it’s not going to be for nothing.”

It was another hour before she saw the golden wave of the wheat field on the horizon. Chell finally stopped, then, taking a swig from her canteen and giving the sight its due consideration. It was still beautiful, in its way, yet there was a discomfiting _wrongness_ to it that would have been unaccountable had she not known what existed under the earth there. _Expensive paint globbed onto a rotting canvas._

A little sad, truth be told. Doubly so considering the wheat would have been an excellent resource for her newfound community if only it had not grown upon territory far too dangerous to harvest. But this land’s queen would do some harvesting of her own, Chell was sure, should any such prospective agricultural efforts come calling…

Her feet began moving again, as she saw no sense dwelling over lost opportunities any longer. She was here to retrieve something lost, as it happened, and that, she was adamant, was going to be that.

Chell’s companion cube was exactly as she had left it, nestled between the roots of a tree in the ranks of the only copse to be found in sight. The heart-faced box had some weather marking to it, but that honestly was nothing when taking its previous scarring into account. She gazed at it a little while before finally picking it up.

Chell didn’t quite feel an obligation to the object—it was in fact inanimate, and would have had no concept of ‘missing her’ in the time since she’d left it there—but there was, still, some form of attachment that she couldn’t deny. As much as she didn’t want the experience from the place whence it had come that experience had still shaped her, and she felt a strange pull towards having a physical testament to that.

The wind was the only thing that followed her as she turned towards home. Chell was glad for it, as for a goodly amount of time there she’d not been able to keep back the vague sensation of having been watched.

_Rest assured I’m keeping my end of our ‘bargain’,_ she directed in thought-form down towards the caverns she knew snaked the earth only a few dozen meters beneath her feet. _You wanted me gone and I’ll never stop wanting to_ be _gone._

And hell, knowing the kind of technology down there that was presumably working itself to breakneck pieces, it was entirely possible that declaration was received.

Chell was more exhausted than she’d been in a long while when she finally walked back onto the now-familiar streets of her home, but in spite of her heavy limbs she rather thought it a good thing that the round-trip trek took so very long. The sun was setting, which meant cold was fast drawing in, and there were few if any passersby about to see her lugging a large and ostensibly quite useless box hither and fro on the way to her apartment.

As she set the cube down in the living area and began her process of settling in for the night, Chell couldn’t help but reflect on a particular aspect of her return journey. Many of the miles she crossed she had already seen, during that first foray away from the underground, and while she without difficulty recalled their openness and could not of course have missed the devastation that still marked them from the invasion, she still couldn’t remember them having seemed so…desolate, before. It made her wonder what had changed, because near as she could tell, nothing physical had.

It did not occur to her until later into the night, in the acuity-sharpening drowse that just precedes sleep, that the altering variable had been her situation; she had had company that last time, and during this venture it had not been the land that was lonely.

\-----

“Chell, there you are! Come on in and sit down, sit down!”

Grinning, Chell wound her way through the tables of the little café and plopped down amongst her coworkers in the seat offered to her. “Sorry I’m a bit late, time ran away from me a little bit this morning.”

Margery scoffed with good humor. “The day we start being formal about Sunday lunch is pretty far off. Everything alright, though?”

“Oh, yes.” Chell waved a reassuring hand. “I was just over-involved in working on something.”

“That’s right, you are living alone for the rest of the next week still. Gets hard to remember to look at a clock during times like that.”

She was laughing in agreement when the café owner’s voice drifted out from the room behind the front counter. “Hey, is that Chell’s voice I hear out there now? Beak or snout for your sandwich, love?”

Chell laughed harder. “Chicken please, Mitchell, as always!”

The conversation turned for a while to plans for their upcoming projects: in the following week they were due to begin electrical work in one of the buildings they’d recently finished patching the walls of, as well as making sure several others had proper insulation before the snows came. More days than not were tinted gray, lately, and everyone could feel winter crouching on the horizon. It was of utmost importance that as many people were as fortified as possible for the season.

To that end, it was encouraged for those of the reconstruction team to do a bit of networking both during and outside of work hours, talking to family members and acquaintances both in the search of anyone who may need to commission them. Listening to everyone speak as she munched on her food, Chell gleaned that James’ aunt had a fireplace, more crumbled mortar than brick, that they could possibly fix, and Margery’s wife had mentioned that her brother’s family were having issues with their home’s foundation having cracked. In addition to this they had all spotted various windows around the settlement that could stand for some shoring up; keeping up steady heat in the dark season was arguably more important than keeping up steady food.

By and by the chatting turned to more personal anecdotes, everyone sharing what they’d been up to in their off hours since their last luncheon. Chell smiled to hear stories of the antics of pets and children, successes in hobbies and romance (Colin had gotten engaged, to everyone’s delight, and they were all invited to the wedding), and in one case the moving of house.

“How about you, Chell?” Judy asked at one point, noticing that she’d been quiet for a while.

Her thumb made circles inside the handle of her mug. “Ah, well, you all know my week’s been pretty slow. Took a hike yesterday,” she said, sipping at her drink, “but I don’t know as I’d recommend the direction I went to anybody. It was pretty barren.”

General murmurs of agreement followed her words. “Yeah,” James said, “when you said on Friday that you were leaving town for a bit I did wonder why you were even bothering. S’too dodgy out there to think about going very far.”

“Just needed to stretch my legs.” It wasn’t a lie. “It can get pretty restless essentially sitting in one spot every day after you get home.”

Margery frowned. “But I thought you had that painting hobby?”

Chell’s stomach dropped a little, and she hoped her answering smile didn’t look as forced as it felt. “Sometimes that can be more frustrating than fun.”

\-----

Painting hadn’t been fun since Doug had gone.

That was not to say it had been unhelpful—it still gave her mental space to drive back the demons, and something with which to give form to her anguishes and pains and hopes. The catharsis was still there. It was just that every time she looked down and found one of the paint splatters from their now long-past skirmish (somehow they kept finding ones they’d missed in their cleanup, even now), it reminded her of that sense of lightness that he seemed to have taken with him. She appreciated the activity now as he must have done, back underground: cleansing, but abrasively so, and without afterward salve no matter how many silences it muffled or how many hours it whittled away.

Chell sat her paintbrush down with a sigh and drew her knees up to her chest. All she’d managed tonight were a few vague figures, each wearing white and accompanied by a familiar-looking box, and she wasn’t keen on focusing any more art on that particular track of thought. At least not right now, when the hollowness beneath her ribs was gaping so wide.

“I’ve proved can live alone well enough,” she said eventually, blinking back the glassiness her gaze had acquired and flicking her eyes to the side to look at Pan. “But I’ve figured out that I don’t really like it.”

The battered companion cube hummed softly, and had actually been doing so on and off for about an hour, but Chell liked to think that it was in reply. She smiled a little at it before getting herself up and padding in the direction of the kitchen so that she could get some food down before heading to bed. The paintings she left alone—Doug wasn’t coming back for another three days still, so there was time yet until his likenesses would need covering over.

He had told her he loved her, but Chell was still self-conscious about how much she’d come to miss him while he’d been away. Especially as she had not said any such words back to him before he’d gone. His was the company that she most desired out of everyone she’d met aboveground, but truthfully she was tied in just as many knots as he’d appeared to be about actually coming out and labeling what she felt towards him. Doug was, as she’d told him, her favorite person, yet not having had any experience in the realm of deep attachment before had left her somewhat stricken in wondering if that was ‘enough’.

…enough…

His face flashed clearly in her mind—the way it had looked just after he confessed, how a simple affirmation from her that she wasn’t going to turn away from him because of it had had such a drastic effect. His _face_ …

His smile had been like sunlight.

Throat working in a painful swallow, Chell rolled over in bed (the bed that lately had felt far, far too empty). Her saying that she accepted his love was not the same as saying she returned it, and yet that had been ‘enough’. He’d been happy, so happy, to just lay down with her after that, and hadn’t asked for a single word further… That in itself spoke of how low a bar of reciprocated positive emotion he had experience with, and also was what had her stumbling at any time she thought of repeating the words back to him before his trip. He felt things so deeply; Doug felt so _much_. She wished her feelings were something measurable, concrete, so that she could make sure hers matched. He deserved absolutely nothing less.

But then, she wondered, hugging a pillow in lieu of him, didn’t that by itself count for a lot? That in all of this the one thing she wanted most to do was continue to be there for him on every level that he was for her?

It occurred to Chell that in her anxiety, she’d been complicating things.

What had Doug said… 

_“I really like this town, and this apartment, but what I like most about them is that you’re here living in them too. They wouldn’t be the same without you, to me. Anywhere that’s not—anywhere aboveground is nice, but I can’t see myself looking forward to coming home every day as much if part of it wasn’t picturing you being there.”_

Her heart beat faster, just from the remembering.

_“I feel safe sleeping next to you, and like that your face is often the first thing I get to see when I wake up. And I don’t want that to stop. I want to be with you for as far into the future as I can dare or hope to imagine.”_

Mentally she began matching herself up against everything he’d listed, ticking them off one by one.

_“And I think that means that I…”_

Gripping the pillow tightly and blinking in the faint moonlight, Chell came to the only natural realization awaiting her at the end of it all: _oh_.

The single-word expression was unsophisticated perhaps, but it was encompassing, and Chell drifted off soon afterward with every worry washed away.


End file.
